The ESA DestinE Core ServiceRegular provision of technological capabilities, resources, More Platform Use Cases project (DEUC) launched the DESP Innovation Prize initiative with an Ideation Challenge to be held on 6 November 2023 in Vienna.  

Contestants can express their interest to participate in the challenge which is being organised as part of the Big Data from Space Conference (BIDS ’23). This satellite event is open to creative people who would like to participate in the challenge and to curious audiences who would like to discover the new ideas and potential applications of Destination Earth (DestinE) being brought out.  

There are three prize categories with winners of each category being awarded €2000 each. 

Do you want to see the many possibilities that DestinE could potentially bring to reality? Express your interest now either as a challenge participant or an attendee! Both participation and attendance are free, but registration to the BIDS’23 (opening from 14 September) and on-site presence are required. 

Challenge Mechanics

As a participant in the challenge, you will work in teams of up to three people to imagine creative and innovative applications where DestinE could impact people’s lives. This can be done through mock-ups of potential services that will be evaluated by our team of experts. 

The final proposals of these creative applications will be evaluated less on what is currently technically feasible and more on their alignment with the DestinE vision and their impact on people’s lives. Therefore, participants are invited to bring along their imagination! 

Who can compete? The challenge is addressed to all BIDS’23 conference attendees who possess creative thinking skills and have an interest in problem-solving through innovative and imaginative approaches. The target audience may vary from developers, computer vision experts, innovators and inventors to designers, artists and creative professionals. 

Jury & Prizes

Our team of experts will be judging the proposals, and prizes will be given in three categories: 

• Most promising concept; 
• Bluesky concept;
• Radical realities. 

The evaluations will be based on their alignment with the DestinE vision and the Impact, Feasibility and Novelty of the proposals. Each prize will receive €2,000.  

Applicants can apply as a team of up to three people or individually. 

Agenda 

The session will be organised take approximately four and a half hours, and the draft agenda is as follows: 

• 1st Hour – Introduction 
  Participants will be introduced to DestinE through presentations given by three key expert stakeholders. These presentations are meant to provide a background on the vision of the project, a sense of the state of the art of the project, and an understanding of its co-design mentality. Following the sharing of this material, these stakeholders will remain until the end of the session to mentor participants and will be available to respond to more questions on the project and its capabilities. 
   
• 2nd Hour – Setting the Scene 
  Workshop facilitators provide participants with material to inspire imagination and creative thinking on DestinE. Discussions within teams and with the aid of facilitator prompts will help generate thoughts on the operational context of DestinE. In this part of the workshop, more discussions and creative thinking are expected by the teams. 
   
• 3rd Hour – Visualising Proposals  
  Following the introduction to DestinE and familiarisation with the context to work in, teams proceed to conceptualise what their proposal could be. They will begin to formulate ideas, and will start to flesh out possible services or applications of DestinE in the form of low fidelity mock-ups and sketches. 
   
• 4th Hour – Fine Tuning Proposals & Presentation  
  In the last part of the workshop, teams will finish off their mock-ups or proposals and prepare a short pitch presentation that is shared with the entire workshop. These presentations and mock-ups will be the basis to understand the impact, feasibility and novelty of each team’s proposal. 

Express your interest now and receive updates about the challenge!