Earlier this week we announced the time and date for the Net Zero Challenge pitch contest, and invited you to register for the event here.
We are now ready to announce the shortlist of projects that have made it to the second stage of the Net Zero Challenge.
When we launched the Net Zero Challenge in January, we were unsure how many individuals and organisations in the global open data community were already thinking about how open data could be used to advance climate action. We were overwhelmed with the response – and received almost 100 applications.
It’s been hard to decide which ideas/projects should be shortlisted for the next stage. In the end, we made our choice by focusing on three key criteria:
- Whether the use of open data was well explained
- Whether the results chain leading to climate action was strong
- Whether the idea/project was scalable (from whatever stage it was already at)
The following five projects have been shortlisted:
Snapshot Climate Tool [established project]
Provides greenhouse gas emission profiles for every local government region (municipality) in Australia.
CarbonGeoScales [established project]
A framework for standardising open data for GHG emissions at multiple geographical scales (built by a team from France).
Project Yarquen [project in development]
A new API tool and website to organise climate relevant open data for use by civil society organisations, environmental activists, data journalists and people interested in environmental issues (built by a team from Argentina).
Citizen Science Avian Index for Sustainable Forests [concept in development & prospective PhD]
A new biomonitoring tool that uses open data on bird observations to provide crucial information on forest ecological conditions (from South Africa).
Election Climate [established project]
Analyses recognition of climate change issues by prospective election candidates in Brazil, enabling voters to make informed decisions about who to vote in to office.
During the pitch contest on 13th April, each of these shortlisted teams will have three minutes to pitch their project, in response to the challenge statement: How can you advance climate action using open data?
Questions from our Panel of Experts (and the audience) will then be put to the teams. Pitches will be scored, and the winning team awarded $1,000 USD.
• Register now via Eventbrite to watch the pitch contest.
James is the Development Manager at Open Knowledge Foundation. James is passionate about developing innovative projects that deliver measurable positive impact in the world. Get in touch if you want to talk about your ideas ! @the_robot_james
