Green Hackathon

Green Hackathon

Description

Welcome to two days of hacking for openness and sustainability at the OKFestival in Helsinki. This is an opportunity to meet great developers and sustainability experts and to help out our planet with some innovative coding.

This event is part of the Green Hackathon series of events taking place across Europe and it will comprise two days of working hands-on to improve and disseminate sustainability data. It will begin with a short presentation on Wednesday morning (Sept. 19) and end with a Show-and-Tell of the results (Sept. 20).

The focus will be on opening up and improving existing sustainability data and improving existing applications. The following challenges will be featured in the programme:

  • “A Github for Environmental Data” by Chris Adams, AMEE UK
  • “Energy Pulse” by Thomas Thurner, Semantic Web Company / Open Knowledge Forum Austria (OKFO)
  • “Big Oil Facts/Truth” by Denise Recheis, Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP)
  • “Sustainable Urban Infrastructure Study - Helsinki” by Markku Suvanto, Siemens Finland
  • “Land Matrix” by Neil Sorensen, International Land Coalition

Many different contributions are welcome, including coders, designers, data specialists, economists or sustainability thinkers. The participation format is flexible, you can stay for the whole two days or drop in and out helping out some existing team. Participation is free and a OKFestival ticket is not required. Come along and help us with the challenge of opening up sustainability knowledge and making it more accessible!

How to Participate

Participation is free and an OKFestival ticket is not required.

This event is part of the Open Knowledge and Sustainability Stream.

To register your interest for participating: http://lanyrd.com/2012/okfestival-green-hackathon/

If you would like to participate, but are not attending the OKFestival, please e-mail us at sustainability [at] okfestival.org.

More information about the event at: http://okfestival.greenhackathon.com

Session Host

Green Hackathon

Green Hackathon, @greenhackathon, info@greenhackathon.com
Contact: Hannes Ebner, KTH, @electricbum, hebner@kth.se

Contributors

Hannes Ebner (organizer), KTH, Sweden, @electricbum, hebner@kth.se

Jorge Zapico (organizer), KTH Centre for Sustainable Communications, Sweden, @zapico, jorge@zapi.co

James Smith (organizer), Cleanweb, UK, @floppy

Chris Adams (organizer), AMEE, UK, @mrchrisadams

Velichka Dimitrova (organizer), OKFN, @vndimitrova

Details

Location: Wed-Thu Hack Workshop 3

Date & Time: Wed 19, 11:30-20:00 Thur 20, 11:30-19:30

Target Group: Hackers, coders, designers, data analysts, open data experts, sustainability experts, …

Topic Stream: Open Knowledge and Sustainability

Schedule

Wednesday

11:30: Hack Space opens

11:30 - 12:00: Intro and presentation of all challenges (~5 min for each)

12:00 - 13:30: Workshop “A Github for Environmental Data” by Chris Adams, AMEE UK

14:00 - 15:30: Workshop “Energy Pulse”, Denise Recheis, Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) & “Big Oil Facts/Truth”, Thomas Thurner, Semantic Web Company / Open Knowledge Forum Austria (OKFO)

16:00 - 17:30: Workshop “Sustainable Urban Infrastructure Study - Helsinki”, by Markku Suvanto, Siemens Finland

18:00 - 19:30: Workshop “Land Matrix”, by Neil Sorensen, International Land Coalition

20:00: Hack Space closes

Thursday

11:30: Hack Space opens

11:30 – 13:00 Workshop by Tim Herzog (World Bank Open Data)

19:00 - … : Wrap-Up Green Hackathon Party, location tbc

Challenges and Data Sets

Workshops are scheduled on Wednesday and Thursday, when the challenge presenters will be available to talk about their data and answer questions. You can drop by for their session:

A Github for Environmental Data

presented by Chris Adams, AMEE UK, @mrchrisadams, workshop at 12:00-13:30 on Wednesday, September 19.

AMEE is in the process of opening up its calculation platform, starting with opening up all the datasets it has ownership and access to, and ending with opensourcing the actual code used to execute and store the results of any environmental calculations. Previously if you wanted to work out the impact of making something, travelling somewhere or basically any activity, you had to rely on it being added to the platform by a dedicated team of scientists at AMEE. In opening up the platform however, AMEE aims to build a commons for environmental calculation, to let anyone to share and discuss models for calculating the footprint of anything. Your challenge is to either a) add to this commons by adding a model that can be used for future calculations, or b) use the existing datasets and source code to find a way to embed environmental modelling into something else, making use of already published datasets, in new ways. If this challenge interests you, AMEE staff with experience working with existing datasets, and repurposing data for calculation be available to help turn your idea into working code.

Data Sources and Other Resources:

Energy Pulse

presented by Thomas Thurner, Semantic Web Company / Open Knowledge Forum Austria (OKFO), workshop at 14:00-15:30 on Wednesday, September 19.

Production and consumption of electric power are subject to daily as well as seasonal  fluctuations. These variations depend on many factors, such as consumption patterns and availability of resources. For renewable energy, factors such as wind intensity, solar radiation or water-level of rivers determine the energy yield. A visualization of such high-production/high consumption patterns per region could be a good starting point for discussions on smart grids, necessary interconnection at power lines, energy storage and the energy security. For a start, the focus of this challenge will be Europe. Data Sources and Other Resources:

Visualization may be all from a globe rotating, showing day/night and the energy-status of the regions  in various colors, to an animated 24h and seasonal switch with various factors to be switched on and off, etc.

Big Oil Facts/Truth

presented by Denise Recheis, Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), workshop at 14:00-15:30 on Wednesday, September 19.

The idea is to visualize the connection between tax breaks for oil companies, their profits, their production and the price of their products. Furthermore jobs created and lobbying can be explored. Results are bound to be interesting as more tax breaks don’t translate into higher production nor cheaper prices. This challenge should focus on the US for a start, as there is enough data and interesting, even controversial results. The idea can be developed further to include other national policies like feed-in tariffs in the future. Another interesting aspect would be to compare government spending on renewables with losses through tax breaks for fossils. Data Sources and Resources:

Land Matrix

by Neil Sorensen, International Land Coalition, workshop at 18:00-19:30 on Wednesday, September 19.

The Land Matrix public interface gives users the possibility to explore information about large-scale land deals in the world through dynamic visualizations such as the flow of acquisitions between countries, percentages of land-use, and lists of countries with the most acquisitions, among other variables. We challenge participants to take our data on land acquisitions and to create new and engaging visualizations for the Land Matrix public interface. Here are the databases

Other Challenges, description and links tbc:

Sustainable Urban Infrastructure Study - Helsinki

by Markku Suvanto, Siemens Finland, workshop at 16:00 - 17:30 on Wednesday, September 19.

Challenge the city growth and base CO2 scenario. How will Helsinki’s future look like… CO2 visualization for citizens. How do we make Helsinki more sustainable?

The base scenario projects Helsinki’s CO2 emissions in 2030. This scenario was calculated by using Helsinki’s historical emission growth rate and taking into account the impact of those technological improvements and regulatory changes that are known to be implemented (i.e. implementation is already started or a commitment for implementation is in place or decision of regulatory change has already been made). These improvements are referred to as base levers and consist of e.g. rail traffic improvements already under construction and the impact of new building regulations and the EU Eco-design directive. The base scenario alone implies a decline of 13 % or 0,4 Mt in annual CO2 emissions from the current level of 3,0 Mt in 2010 to 2,6 Mt in 2030. The optimized scenario projects Helsinki’s CO2 emissions in 2030 when additional levers that reduce emissions even further are also implemented (extra levers). Examples of these include new innovative solutions and implementation concepts such as a demand response system for the electricity distribution grid and a very high level of electric vehicle usage by 2030. This scenario implies full implementation of concepts introduced in this study. The optimized scenario results in a further 1,4 Mt reduction in annual CO2 emissions compared to 2010, implying a total decline of 61 % from the current level of 3,0 Mt in 2010 to an optimized level of 1,2 Mt in 2030.

There is reduction potential of already 18 % in the short term (by 2015) and further potential of 43% in the long term (by 2030) if all levers are to be implemented.

TBC

by Ed Borden, Cosm/LogMeIn workshop at 14:00-15:30 on Thursday, September 20.