The IAU Office of Astronomy for Development (IAU OAD) is pleased to announce that, together with partners, it will host 13 data science hackathons across 12 countries between February and April 2025. The events will be organised under the OAD’s flagship project, Hack4dev.

Hack4dev is a project under the OAD’s Knowledge and Skills for Development theme. It aims to advance development objectives through the teaching and application of knowledge and skills from astronomy, such as programming, data handling, data analysis and machine learning, as well as infrastructure, such as cloud computing platforms. Hack4dev is a collaboration between the OAD and partners.

The newly announced events will offer participants the opportunity to tackle data challenges using cutting-edge techniques and infrastructure, develop a machine learning pipeline for CubeSats [1], collaborate with peers, and compete against regional teams from around the globe. Participants will access Jupyter development environments [2], using computational resources provided by the ilifu cloud computing system [3] to develop and test solutions.

Hackathons will take place in Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia, Botswana, South Africa, Madagascar, Rwanda, Namibia, Mozambique, India, Brazil, and Chile. The OAD will directly fund the hackathons in Ethiopia and Chile, and will support the other events through the Hack4dev collaboration.

Postgraduate students and exceptional final-year undergraduates with strong Python programming skills are encouraged to apply for the hackathon nearest to their location. Participants are expected to commute to and from the venue each day of the event.

For more details and registration, please visit https://hack4dev.org/call-dsrh-2025. 

Notes

[1] CubeSats are a category of small satellites that can be used for various purposes, including astronomical observations. An on-orbit data pipeline for CubeSats is discussed in the paper "Data downlink prioritization using image classification on-board a 6U CubeSat," Keenan A. A. Chatar, Ezra Fielding, Kei Sano, Kentaro Kitamura, Proc. SPIE 12729, Sensors, Systems, and Next-Generation Satellites XXVII, 127290K (19 October 2023); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2684047 

[2] JupyterLab is a web-based interactive development environment for notebooks, code, and data.

[3] Ilifu is a big data infrastructure for data-intensive research hosted in South Africa. 

More information

The IAU is the international astronomical organisation that brings together about 13,000 distinguished astronomers from around the world. Its mission is to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in all its aspects, including research, communication, education and development, through international cooperation. The IAU also serves as the internationally recognised authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and the surface features on them. Founded in 1919, the IAU is the world’s largest professional body for astronomers.

The IAU established the Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) in partnership with the South African National Research Foundation (NRF), and supported by the South African Department of Science, Technology and Innovation. The OAD, located at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) in Cape Town, South Africa, aims to help further the use of astronomy, including its practitioners, skills and infrastructures, as a tool for development.

Links

• IAU Office of Astronomy for Development (IAU OAD) Official Website 
• Hack4dev Official Website

Contacts

Kevin Govender
Director, IAU Office of Astronomy for Development
Email: kg@astro4dev.org 

Lina Canas
IAU Membership Coordinator
Email: lina.canas@iau.org / iaupressoffice@iau.org 

Laura Hiscott
IAU Press Office Editor
Email: iaupressoffice@iau.org