NASA's Space Apps program convenes global citizens through hackathons to solve mission challenges using open data. Space Apps has grown from 770 solutions in 2012 to over 949 in 2015 produced by over 71,000 participants. It teaches NASA where it needs to improve capabilities to engage citizens. Initiatives like data bootcamps and focusing on "Women in Data" have increased diversity among participants. NASA works with winning teams to potentially incorporate their ideas into its missions and processes, though integrating citizen solutions takes time.

1. Beth Beck, NASA Open Innovation Program Manager
NASA’s Office of the Chief Information Officer
Data Innovation Center Talk: June 24, 2015
Innovation through Open Data

2. Innovation through Open Data
Space Apps = NASA’s Innovation Incubator
Space Apps NYC Bootcamper & Award Winner Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Women in Data
• Data Bootcamp
• Datanauts
• Data Fellows
Innovation Acceleration
• Acceleration Toolkit
• Accelerator Pilots:
• Dakar
• Nairobi
• Guatamala
Innovation Pipeline
• Infuse citizen-generated innovative
thinking back into NASA’s missions
and processes
• Leveraging Global Best Use of Data
NYSpaceTag solution for NASA Data
Data Exploration
• Open.NASA.gov
• Data.NASA.gov
• Code.NASA.gov
• API.NASA.gov
• Open Source

3. Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Innovation through Open Data
NASA’s open data convenes global citizens
through Space Apps to solve mission-relevant challenges.
Space Apps teaches us what we do well and where we need
to add, refine, or upgrade capabilities and capacity.
Space Apps is NASA’s incubator innovation program
to fulfill federal open data mandates to spur innovation.
International Space Apps Challenge

4. Innovation through Open Data
25
83
95
133
101
770
671
949
2012
2013
2014
2015
Solutions Produced
Events
Space Apps: 2012-2015
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
2015

5. Innovation through Open Data
Space Apps 2015 Participants: Self-Identified Skills
Developer/Software: 5449
Designer/Artist: 1978
Game Design: 859
Hardware: 1884
Maker: 1367
Story Teller: 1236
Student: 7237
Subject Matter Expert: 844
Entrepreneur: 1940
Other: 2156
Space Apps NYC Bootcamper & Award Winner Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer

6. Innovation through Open Data
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer

7. Innovation through Open Data
Space Apps 2015: Winners
Best Use of Data: NY Space Tag from
New York City, New York offers a data tagging
system that extracts keywords and core concepts to
more easily query NASA data.
Best Use of Hardware: Valkyrie from
Sofia, Bulgaria is a “smart” glove and mobile device
that enables gesture and voice recognition to ease
automation tasks for work or play.
Best Mission Concept: ArachnoBeeA
from Limassol, Cyprus designed a spider-bee drone
for small cargo transport with a grab and capture
capability and the ability to dock and release.
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer

8. Innovation through Open Data
Space Apps 2015: Winners
Galactic Impact: CROPP from Rome, Italy is a
bottle-bot with sensors to gather in-situ data applied
to optical and radar satellite imaging to provide real-
time crop risk assessment.
Most Inspirational: Tracking/ Sensing
Phone-bot from Kathmandu, Nepal enables users
to explore and extract data from nearby objects using
a mobile robot platform with smartphone sensors.
People’s Choice Award: NatEv Explorer
from Pristina, Kosovo uses real-time earth
observation data to populate an interactive 3D globe
for crowdsourced tagging and discovery of potential
natural hazards and threats.
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer

9. Innovation through Open Data
Space Apps NYC Bootcamper & Award Winner Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Women in
Data
Women in Data
Women in Data
•Data Bootcamp
•Datanauts
•Data Fellows
Space Apps: NASA Innovation Incubator

10. Innovation through Open Data
Women in Data
Space Apps NYC Bootcamper & Award Winner Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
@SpaceApps Social media demographics
Fact: More men than women participate in Space Apps.
Yet ratio of girls to boys at Space Apps student events is high.
WHY?

11. Innovation through Open Data
Women in Data
Space Apps NYC Bootcamper & Award Winner Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
“Men engage in their spare time.
Women have to MAKE TIME.”
Vanessa Hurst, Founder and CEO, Code Montage

12. Innovation through Open Data
New concepts to signal NASA = safe space!
#1 Data Bootcamp: Space Apps pre-event to introduce code/robotics
concepts [signals safety, welcome, and belonging]
#2 Datanaut Corps: Female founding class [signals safety, belonging]
#3 Data Fellows: Female data scientists for 6 month assignments [signals
safety, belonging]
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Space Apps Cairo
Women in Data

13. Innovation through Open Data
#1 Data Bootcamp
Inaugural event @ Space Apps NYC: Community leaders shared intro content on
coding, making, dataset retrieval/manipulation, problem solving, and storytelling.
• 70 attended, 75% women, 30% under 21, 30% under 35.
• Event live-streamed, babysitting services on site.
Lagos, Nigeria and Cairo, Egypt also hosted live bootcamps.
Rome and San Salvador convened virtual live-streamed events.
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer

14. Innovation through Open Data
Data Bootcamp
.NYC Data Bootcampers participated in Space Apps hackathon –
formed teams, collaborated, and won awards.
Bootcampers in front row at Space Apps NYC.
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Women in Data

15. Innovation through Open Data
#2 NASA Datanauts: all female founding class (4 PIFS!)
• Signals a safe space for women to engage with us and innovate around
NASA data and tools; and
• Brings in leaders in the field help us learn how to speak their language
and engage others in their community around NASA’s data and tools.
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Women in Data

16. Innovation through Open Data
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Women in Data
Datanauts making news…

17. Innovation through Open Data
#3 Data Fellows Program Concept:
• Recruit strong candidates to meet complex data requirements. Attract data science
and engineering expertise for mission support.
• Leverage existing partnerships with academia, non-profits, industry.
Competitive program with criteria for leadership and experience .
• 6-12 month tours to focus on addressing critical data challenges.
Space Apps Cleveland
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Women in Data

18. Innovation through Open Data
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Naming “Women in Data” as a focus
sparked increased participation at Space Apps 2015
Space Apps 2015 Dhaka, Bangladesh
Space Apps 2015: Women in Data
Women in Data

19. Innovation through Open Data
Women in Data: Space Apps 2015 stats
• 1 in 4 participants are women
• 47% of 60 top global award finalists had one or more women on
the project team
• Largest event (Cairo) led by women
• 49% of NYC Mainstage participants were women
Space Apps NYC Bootcamper & Award Winner Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Space Apps 2015 NYC – Data Bootcampers

20. Innovation through Open Data
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Space Apps Cotonou
Women in Data

21. Innovation through Open Data
Space Apps NYC Bootcamper & Award Winner Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Innovation Acceleration
Innovation Acceleration
•Acceleration Toolkit
•Accelerator Pilots:
•Dakar
•Nairobi
•Guatemala
Space Apps: NASA Innovation Incubator

22. Innovation through Open Data
Space Apps NYC Bootcamper & Award Winner Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Innovation Acceleration: Toolkit
Space Apps Progress

23. Innovation through Open Data
Space Apps NYC Bootcamper & Award Winner Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Innovation Acceleration: Toolkit

24. Innovation through Open Data
Space Apps Weekend
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Innovation Acceleration
2015 Pilots: Dakar + Guatemala + Nairobi

25. Innovation through Open Data
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Space Apps Round Rock
Space Apps Cairo
Innovation Acceleration

26. Innovation through Open Data
Space Apps NYC Bootcamper & Award Winner Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Innovation Pipeline
Innovation Pipeline
• Infuse citizen-generated
innovative thinking back
into NASA’s missions and
processes
• Leveraging Global Best
Use of Data NYSpaceTag
solution for NASA Data
Space Apps: NASA Innovation Incubator

27. Innovation through Open Data
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Innovation Pipeline
Post-Space Apps analysis:
• Open Innovation team works with Space Apps
Challenge Owners to review EVERY project to
determine next steps.
• Challenge owners who see value and express
interest in moving forward are connected
with project team members.
• Our team tracks progress.
Issues:
• Space Apps solutions are rarely fully-baked
after a weekend hackathon.
• Merging open source code from multiple
projects to create a NASA app is difficult.
• Culture inside organizations isn’t always open.
Infuse citizen-generated innovative thinking into NASA missions/ processes.
NASA Subject Matter experts identified a dozen Space Apps 2015 projects
as potential candidates for further consideration within NASA missions.
The process to infuse new thinking back into NASA takes time.
Best Use of Data: NYSpaceTag

28. Innovation through Open Data
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Innovation Pipeline
Global Best Use of Data Award Winning Team NYSpaceTag with NASA’s Open Innovation Team
NASA is collaborating with NYSpaceTag Global Winner for use within Open Data.

29. Innovation through Open Data
Space Apps NYC Bootcamper & Award Winner Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Data Exploration
Data Exploration
• Open.NASA.gov
• Data.NASA.gov
• Code.NASA.gov
• API.NASA.gov
• Open Source
Space Apps: NASA Innovation Incubator

30. Innovation through Open Data
Space Apps NYC Bootcamper & Award Winner Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Data Exploration
Open.NASA.gov Redesign
DRAFT

31. Innovation through Open Data
Space Apps NYC Bootcamper & Award Winner Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Data Exploration
Data.NASA.gov Reboot

32. Innovation through Open Data
Space Apps NYC Bootcamper & Award Winner Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Data Exploration
Code.NASA.gov

33. Innovation through Open Data
Space Apps NYC Bootcamper & Award Winner Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Data Exploration
API.NASA.gov

34. Innovation through Open Data
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
And, we’ve only just begun….
Space Apps Lagos