CHALLENGE 08

Planetary Pixels

Challenge Overview

To realise net zero carbon abatement goals, policymakers and business leaders are racing to find ways to cut emissions quickly. Using forests and other carbon-storing ecosystems as carbon sinks is an effective way a country or corporation can offset its emissions.

In the land sector, farmers and growers are well positioned to help their home countries meet net zero targets. Farmers and growers also stand to gain from increasing carbon stocks by converting any carbon they’ve stored into monetised credits, which can be traded on voluntary carbon markets. Many countries are currently seeking ways of incentivising farmers to adopt these practices. However, many have run into a common problem: access to consistent, high resolution satellite imagery.

Most opportunity for farmers and growers to store carbon by planting up forests and riparian zones exists on marginal, discontiguous land that would be very difficult to detect from remote sensors at low cost. To reward farmers with carbon credits for this sequestration, government officials need reliable, cost-effective datasets that can be leveraged to remotely assess and monitor sequestration on agricultural land.

Your Objectives:

  1. Your challenge is to develop a methodology for accessing publicly available, high resolution (<10m pixels) satellite imagery that public officials could use to build a national land use map that can measure, monitor, report, and verify carbon sequestration every year. The smaller those pixels, the better!
  2. Show how this product can scale and be part of a mature sustainability market with a  3-minute video demonstrating and pitching your proposed solution. You can follow any narrative structure you prefer, but one you could follow is walking through the stages of: What is the problem? What should the solution resemble? What is your technology to realise this? What’s your proposed business model? Who are your first target customers, and how do you know they really want your solution? What’s your assessment of the market opportunity? What does the competitive landscape look like? Who is your A-team and why are you the best to build this? What would come next to make it real? What would you need to do that?

NOTE: Teams may perform background research before the event, but any group that starts building before the 48 hour timer starts will be disqualified.

Your Rewards:

First Prize

  • $1000 cash
  • $2000 worth of units in our 2022 fund (i.e. targeting 12 space tech investments)
  • Moonshot t-shirts – 60 minutes of free Moonshot coaching
  • A copy of ‘Space is open for business’ by Robert Jacobsen

Second Prize

  • $500 cash
  • $1000 worth of units in our 2022 fund (i.e. targeting 12 space tech investments)
  • Moonshot t-shirts – 60 minutes of free Moonshot coaching
  • A copy of ‘Space is open for business’ by Robert Jacobsen

Third Prize

  • Moonshot t-shirts
  • 60 minutes of free Moonshot coaching
  • A copy of ‘Space is open for business’ by Robert Jacobsen

Considerations and FAQs:

If you choose to build your solution on the Planetary Computer, here’s some further Information from Microsoft:

  • The Planetary Computer has four components:
    1. The Data Catalog includes more than 24 petabytes of data, including Earth Observation data, made available for free in consistent, analysis-ready formats.
    2. APIs that allow users to easily query data across space and time
    3. The Hub, a managed computing environment that makes data and APIs easily accessible.
    4. Applications from partners that are built on top of the Planetary Computer platform.
  • The Azure Orbital Analytics reference architecture can use Airbus, NAIP/USDA (via the Planetary Computer API), and Maxar imagery, as well as bring your own data.
  • There is no requirement to build a functioning product on Azure. However, if you do decide to do so you may want to:
    1. Request access to the Planetary Computer Account. This should be done before the bootcamp, at least 24 hours before bootcamp kick-off.
    2. An Azure account.
      i. Sign up for an Azure account and use the free services. Note: if you use services that are not free services, you will be charged.
      ii. Moonshot has 50 Azure Pass Subscription codes with $50 USD Azure credits. Please contact a Moonshot team member to redeem a code.

Join our serverto enter the competition

Join our community below to join Bootcamp discussions and to prepare for the event. Share your thoughts, advertise your skills, and find a well-rounded team to register before launch on May 6.

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