NGA announces upcoming hackathon in Austin, TX

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency wants hackathon participants to visualize future technology uses for planning and analyzing in support to crises in Austin July 29-30.

“The goal is to understand how today’s technology will use GIS, imagery information and other big data sources to shape a better future and have a real world impact on current and potential crises,” said U.S. Air Force Col. Marc DiPaolo, NGA’s enterprise innovation lead.​​

The two-day event is an opportunity for teams and individuals to develop and articulate their vision and how technology will impact decisions concerning regional security, automated analysis and improved planning.

“We’re expecting a diverse group of participants including individuals, companies from commercial industry, academics and military personnel,” said DiPaolo. “Having a wide range of participants with different experiences and areas of expertise will give us a diversity of thought we don’t always have in the intelligence community.”

NGA is asking participants to consider several topics of interest when preparing their pitches, such as using artificial intelligence and machine learning to predict regional issues, analyze and interpret large raw data sets, create automated workflows and locational data to support emergency responder planning.

The winning solution will receive a cash award of $5,000​ from NGA and runners-up will receive various prizes donated by industry partners.

NGA will also have subject matter experts on hand throughout the event to answer content and coding-related questions from hackathon participants.

For more information, or to sign up visit: http://expeditionhacks.com/Austin/​

Source: NGA