Next month, the Met Office will be the European lead event for the second International Space Apps Challenge.
In collaboration with governments and organisations around the world, the International Space Apps Challenge on the 20th and 21st April will bring together people on every continent to create open solutions with space data.
In the UK, events are being held at York University, Strathclyde University, Leicester University, London (Google Campus) and the Met Office, Exeter.
An initiative of the Open Government Partnership, the International Space Apps Challenge will showcase the impact that people working together around the world can have on addressing challenges, both on earth and in space, by using open government data resulting from space technology.
Events are planned in cities around the globe and encompass far more than just the development of mobile apps. The event will focus on four challenge areas—software, open hardware, citizen science and data visualisation—providing a platform for open innovation and collaborative problem solving.
Phil Evans, Government Services Director at the Met Office said: ‘We are delighted to be partnering with NASA for a second year and also to be European Lead for the International Space Apps Challenge. Last year was a great success, with one team from the Met Office picking up an international award. We look forward to seeing the challenges participants create this year.”
Teams at the event will also be using our DataPoint web service. This gives access to operational UK weather data and observations as well as exploiting other open data sets available from the Met Office and other participating organisations.
To learn more about the International Space Apps Challenge and to register your interest, visit the Space Apps Challenge homepage. Keep up to date with the latest news on Twitter on @SpaceAppsLondon and @SpaceAppsExeter.
Official blog of the Met Office news team 
I think you’ll find it is 20th and 21st April, 2013.
Thanks Jim we’ve updated the post!
It’s not a “Competition”, it’s a “Challenge”, the headline is wrong.
Apologies, We have corrected this.
I’m debating whether to sign up for London or Exeter. I am currently registered as a DataPoint user, but have done very limited experimenting with it (other than capturing the data and building some Nagios plugins to monitor and alert on it). My main area of “expertise” is building and managing databases – particularly around the Ingres rDBMS and Vectorwise. Any thoughts on which venue I would be of more use?
Thanks
Mark
Hi Mark,
It is best that you choose the venue that is the most suitable for you to get to. Each event will be connecting up to the other venues across the UK and the world so you will be able to work on any challenge that requires your particular skills. Both the London and Exeter venues will have Met Office staff on hand who will be able to help/advise on the most suitable challenge and team to work with.
Hi Dave
Thanks for your prompt reply – greatly appreciated.
Living in Swansea, both London and Exeter are as difficult to get to as each other. However, although I would like to visit the offices in Exeter, as I have a narrow boat near London, I’ll probably use that as my “hotel” and attend the London venue.
Thanks again
Mark