Accelerating Applications for Planned NASA Satellite Missions: A New Paradigm of Virtual Hackathons during a Pandemic and in the Post-Pandemic Era

Zero cost approach to fostering multidisciplinary engagement and innovation in an academic medical centre during COVID-19: experience from the Jugaar Innovation Challenge

“…This is supported by Hossain et al in which they make the case for technology, particularly collaboration and web conferencing tools, that have significantly contributed to their success of conducting a virtual hackathon. 9 …”

“…As per Hossain et al , in their experience of conducting a virtual hackathon, the latter method of engagement has proved successful in effectively using mentor time, prioritising demand for their skills and also upholding quality of interaction through one on one, or small group engagement. 9 Moreover, a systemic challenge to virtual collaboration was poor internet access, and sporadic electricity outages in Pakistan. Although the process of collaborating and working virtually was already well defined through the availability of popular free platforms such as Slack, Zoom, WhatsApp and Google Drive—some participants claimed that internet outages due to electricity load shedding broke their team momentum, and impacted productivity.…”

Reimagining the Surface Water and Ocean Topography Mission as the “Landsat” of Surface Water [Perspective]

“…These EAs have been building technical literacy on the SWOT mission, learning SWOT's data structure, and exploring how exactly SWOT data can add value or solve a previously unsolved societal challenge. Finally, these EAs are also preparing to lay the software and hardware infrastructure necessary for ingesting anticipated SWOT data in their operations or decision-making environment [10], [11], [14]- [17]. The societal challenges addressed by the EAs cover such diverse topics as flood and reservoir management, fisheries and marine science, transboundary water resources, statewide water supply, and marine navigation.…”

“…SWOT data will also be a pathfinder to understanding the human footprint in surface water storage variability due to water management infrastructures [8], [9]. Finally, SWOT should also have a positive societal impact in the water sector, such as disaster management, reservoir operations, water management, ecosystem services planning, hydropower and naviga-tion, fisheries (freshwater and marine), and marine shipping to name a few [10], [11].…”

Online Hackathons as an Engaging Tool to Promote Group Work in Emergency Remote Learning

“…Many online hackathons are targeting problems related to COVID-19 [16] -some of these events focusing on universities [17,18] -but literature is lacking reports on such format as part of undergraduate course projects during the pandemics. So far, a framework for online hackathons was proposed in that scenario, but it lacks details or any concrete usage in a classroom or course setting [19].…”