NASA invites Romanians to enroll in its Space Apps competition

300 visionaries are expected to enroll in the international Space Apps competition. The event takes place with the support of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In Romania, those who are interested can enroll by clicking on the dedicated submission pages for Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iasi and Timisoara.

The event will take place between October 20 and 21, simultaneously in these 4 Romanian cities. Space Apps will also be held in around 200 other cities around the world.

The competition is addressed to any programmer, scientist, designer, storyteller, creator, builder, software specialist or science fan who wants be involved in solving the challenges proposed by NASA. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration also encourages the participation of highschool and university students, but also of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), without any age limitations.

The generic theme of this year’s edition is “Earth and Space!” with the secondary topics: “You Can Build a …” , “Help Others to Discover the Earth”, “Volcanoes, Volcanoes, Icebergs, and Asteroids (Oh My)”, “The World Now Needs… “,”An Icy Glare” and “A Universe of Beauty and Wonders”.

The participants will form teams that will start developing the projects on Saturday morning, October 20, and will have to finish them by Sunday, October 21. The registered teams are invited to bring their own devices to work on the projects.

In each of the four cities, juries will be formed, including experts and science and astronomy enthusiasts. Following the competition, each of juries will nominate two teams/solutions from each participating city, which will enter the NASA-led international assessment process.

Pre-selected teams will have up to a week to create a video of 30 seconds to pitch their project. Finalists for the global awards finalists will be announced maximum six weeks after the local contest, and NASA will announce the global winner in January 2019.

In Romania, the competition is coordinated by the Digital Transformers – Innovation Studio. The purpose of the event is to correlate NASA data in a collaborative manner with people around the world who can find solutions to these challenges.

SpaceApps is an innovative NASA incubation program held annually since 2012 around the world. In 2017, the largest edition was organized with more than 25,000 participants from 6 continents and 187 cities.