Jakarta's International Space Apps Challenge to be Held at Freeware

On April 20-21 2012, DailySocial and @america held the inaugural International Space Apps Challenge, an event run by NASA across 25 locations around the world (including on the International Space Station). There were 2000 participants spending two days working, collaborating, engaging, coding, and creating solutions to assist in space and earth explorations. This year, we'll be doing it again, with 50 more locations participating.

This year's event in Jakarta will be held in 20-21 April in Freeware, a co-working space with 120sqm space located at Medco building in Jl. Ampera no 20, Cilandak, South Jakarta, while the launch of the event and the awarding ceremony will be conducted at @america at Pacific Place Mall.

As we mentioned previously, we're calling for experienced software developers and coders to participate in this year's event to help solve a number of challenges being put forward by NASA. As with last year, the categories include software, hardware, citizen science, and data visualization.

"When I participated the NASA International Space Apps Challenge in 2012, I felt like I had a chance to interact directly with my long time dream," said Fauzan Emmerling, senior software developer at Ice House who participated in last year's event in Jakarta. "During the hackathon we were given a chance to interact with scientists and astronauts from NASA from all parts of the world. One thing I enjoyed the most from the experience was we could collaborate with other participants around the world."

Veritrans scientist Panggi Libersa Akadol, who won last year's Jakarta event with former Yahoo developer Kristiono Setyadi, cited Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a noted Russian rocket scientist from the late 1800s, saying that the next step in human evolution will be as space travelers. "What we do today plays a crucial role in humanity's future due to the limited resources we have on Earth" he said.

Here's a word from Filippo Angelucci of the European Space Agency about Space Apps Challenge: