Beth Beck, NASA's Open Innovation Program Manager, presents insights from the NASA Open Data Interagency Meeting in June 2015, highlighting the International Space Apps Challenge aimed at fostering innovation through open data. The event saw diverse participation, particularly from women, and showcased various innovative projects and solutions resulting from collaborations. To further engage women in data science, NASA has implemented initiatives such as data bootcamps and the establishment of female-focused programs like the Datanauts and Data Fellows.

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

2. 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 the International Space Apps Challenge to solve
mission-relevant challenges.
Space Apps is NASA’s incubator innovation program
to fulfill federal open data mandates to spur innovation.

3. Innovation through Open Data
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Solutions Produced
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Space Apps: 2012-present
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer

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

5. Innovation through Open Data
Space Apps 2015 Participants: Self-Identified Skills Mix
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
Space Apps: 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

7. Innovation through Open Data
Space Apps: 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

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

9. Innovation through Open Data
To understand how to engage more women in NASA data,
we conducted from dozens of interviews:
We heard that women need signals indicating SAFE SPACES to engage.
Space Apps 2015 NYC – Data Bootcampers
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Leverage SIGNALS to remove/lower barriers to participation
1. Signal safety – invite women as speakers/board members
2. Signal welcome – offer early access, childcare
3. Signal belonging – introduce concepts/skills to increase
confidence/competence

10. 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

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

12. Innovation through Open Data
#1 Data Bootcamp prototype: If you build it, they will come…
Inaugural Data Bootcamp
Civic Hall, NYC
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer

13. Innovation through Open Data
Inaugural Data Bootcamp @ Space Apps NYC Mainstage
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 @ Space Apps NYC
.NYC Data Bootcampers participated in Space Apps hackathon,
formed teams, collaborated, and won awards.
47% of Space Apps NYC participants were women.
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer

15. Innovation through Open Data
#2 NASA Datanauts: all female founding class (4 PIFS!)
1. Signals a safe space for women to engage with us and innovate around
NASA data and tools; and
2. 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

16. 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

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

18. Innovation through Open Data
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Space Apps Cotonou
Space Apps 2015: Women in Data

19. 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
Space Apps 2015: Women in Data
1st time event in Cairo led by two
female students. 700 attended.

20. Innovation through Open Data
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Space Apps LA
Space Apps 2015: Women in Data
47% of Top 60 Global Award finalists
had one woman (or more) on team.
Space Apps Chile

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