What you missed! - GMES & Africa Incubation Challenge

On the 9th of August, 2021, the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security & Africa (GMES & Africa) in partnership with CLOUDPORT and 4 other partners, launched an incubation program. The GMES and Africa Incubation Challenge seeked out teams/individuals across Africa with solutions or ideas that addresses issues in the marine and coastal space. The GMES & Africa projects are implemented under The Regional Marine Centre (RMC) at the University of Ghana. They are responsible for the development and dissemination of Earth Observation tools, data access and sharing, capacity strengthening, public awareness creation, policy and decision making, project management amongst other activities and services. 

Teams all across the continent sent in their applications addressing issues relating to but not limited to Solutions for Big Data in Ocean Observation, Solutions for Biodiversity and Conservation, Solutions for Insitu Environmental Measurements, Solutions for Marine Pollution Monitoring, Solutions for Aquaculture Development, Solutions for Fisheries Management and Small Vessel Monitoring, Solutions for Safe Inland Water Transport and Navigation, Solutions for Coastal Vegetation & Biodiversity Assessment and Solutions for Safety At Sea. 

After receiving over seventy (70) applications from various countries, our technical experts evaluated, and selected 15 teams. The following are the teams that made it into the first phase of the challenge. 

1. Smart AquaPak - Ghana 

2. Opt-Brain - Ghana

3. Project Curiosity - Ghana

4. FeedIt - Ghana

5. Byteforce  - Cameroon

6. OCEANOMATRIC - Nigeria

7. Geo'C - Ivory Coast

8. Team Locked - Kenya

9. Project for the establishment of maritime fisheries registers in Africa - Senegal

10. Traza Geospatials - Ghana

11. "Developing a Robust Model for Automatic Oil Spill Detection from Satellite Images Based on Deep Learning  Acronym: “Oil Detector” " - Egypt 

12. Bankai Water Pollution Monitor - Kenya

13. Marine Rescue Alert System - Ghana

14. Realtime Ocean Precipitation Satellite Image Forecast using AI - Ghana

15. Trace Kit - Kenya

These teams were taken  through 3 weeks of rigorous  virtual training sessions which started from 13th September 2021 and ended on 1st October 2021. Resource persons guided the teams on how to fully develop their ideas with IoT and also incorporate scientific data into their solutions. The teams were taken through lectures on technical areas such as Internet of Things for Marine Sciences, IoT radio Connectivity and Application Development to help them build their prototypes. They also had lectures on product development and how to pitch their ideas. They were educated on marine sciences such as Ocean data explorations and acquisitions, algae bloom, sentinel data access and other useful information they would need to refine their solutions. Participants had the opportunity to have one-on-one mentorship sessions with facilitators based on the domain of their solutions. The virtual sessions were concluded with interesting and innovative pitches from each of the teams on the 4th of October 2021. The pitches formed 80% of the final evaluation while the remaining 20% was based on team participations and quizzes. Based on these assessments criteria, 8 teams have been selected, namely; 

1. FeedIt - Ghana

2. Smart AquaPak- Ghana

3. Oil Detector -Egypt

4. Trace Kit - Kenya

5. Project Curiosity - Ghana

6. Team Locked - Kenya

7. Byteforce - Cameroon

8. Traza Geospatials - Ghana

The upcoming phase will have the 8 selected teams meet physically at the University of Ghana,  Accra, Ghana for a 2 week bootcamp session beginning on 18th October, 2021. Our winning teams, by the end of the challenge, are expected to win cash prizes up to $5000 plus an opportunity to showcase their innovative products at the continental level under the auspices of the African Union Commission.

We look forward to welcoming all our teams to Ghana soon and the completion of their innovative solutions to further the development of the marine and coastal space.

Contact innovation@gmesafrica.org for more information on the challenge.

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