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Gold Coast, QLD — Queensland’s only local event in this year’s NASA Space Apps Challenge is headed for the Gold Coast, with the Gold Coast Innovation Hub confirmed as organiser of a hybrid hackathon focused on this city, but accessible to participants from across the state.
The NASA Space Apps Challenge is the space agency’s annual hackathon, run over a single weekend in cities around the world. Last year it drew more than 114,000 participants across 551 local events in 167 countries and territories. Teams pick a challenge written by a NASA subject matter expert and build a response to it using open data from NASA and its space agency partners. This year’s theme is The Next Frontier.
Projects are judged locally first, with two teams from each event going on to global judging.
The Gold Coast event will run in-person at Media8 Studios in Burleigh Heads, with Media8 also providing a livestream so groups anywhere in Queensland can take part. Universities, student associations, innovation hubs, co-working spaces, STEM clubs, schools, or simply a few friends with a living room, are all invited to register a “pod,” tune into the stream, and run their own local activity in step with the main event.
“Queensland is a big state, and there’s plenty of talent on the Gold Coast and in other regional areas that often finds it hard to attend innovation events and hackathons,” local event coordinator Joshua Smith said. “This is a good chance to change that, by making a global event readily accessible to enthusiastic teams in our city, and beyond.”
The Gold Coast Innovation Hub is organising the Gold Coast event, with Media8 hosting the venue and livestream. Local SpaceTech and AI development mentors are being lined up to support participants, alongside NASA’s own online “navigators.” Further local partners, mentors and judges will be announced on the event page in the lead-up to November.
Who can take part?
Developers, data and AI specialists, engineers, designers, students, teachers, researchers, founders, artists and storytellers – anyone curious enough to give it a go. Solo participants are welcome; the organising team will help place them in a team.
Event details
- Date: Saturday 14 November, 9am – Sunday 15 November, 5pm
- Format: In-person at Media8, Burleigh Heads, plus livestream for pods and individuals anywhere in Queensland
- Registration: Open now via the NASA Space Apps Challenge website – select “Gold Coast” as your local event
- Cost: Free to take part. Participants under 18 require parental or guardian consent as well as accompanied supervision
- Contact: Reach out if you have any questions about this event.
More details on partners, mentors, judges and registered pods will be added to the event page in the coming months.
