🥇1st prize to team MEV2025 for their contributions aimed at improving the functionality of Symphony.
🥈2nd prize to team CS-LNU for their raster analytics and prediction tool.
Stories; Invitation; The Challenge; What you will do; Format; Prizes; About the Hosts; Who It’s For; Registration; Poster and banner
Stories
LinkedIn 22 Oct. Hi there, Luis Felipe Sánchez-Heres at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden – leader of Mistra Co-Creating Better Blue (C2B2)‘s workpackage 2. You organized the first C2B2 hackathon where a winning team has now been selected?
– Yes, it was a team of three people who called themselves MEV2025. Behind the name hides Vivien Lacorre who studies at Chalmers University of Technology, Emmanuel Dairo, University of Dundee and Maria Mair from Linnaeus University in Växjö. 👉🏽Read more.
Mistra 2 Oct. How hackathons will help improve maritime spatial planning. Improving data and making it available for sustainable marine spatial planning is one of the goals of the Mistra Co-Creating Better Blue research programme. A three-week hackathon is currently underway, contributing to marine spatial planning tools. 👉🏽Read more.
LinkedIn 30 Sep. C2B2 online Hackathon#1 (in collaboration with Digital Earth Sweden) has been running for a week now. Participants are taking on the challenge of improving the Symphony tool, which Havs- och vattenmyndigheten uses for maritime spatial planning. Several exciting teams are participating, including a strong team from Linnaeus University. RISE Research Institutes of Sweden leads the hackathon and has prepared by developing a tool for gap analysis: https://lnkd.in/ddx4AfnJ
C2B2 12 June. He arranges C2B2’s hackathon. Perhaps not what you would normally associate with a research program, but now C2B2’s own hackathon is underway. – A good way to generate interesting data, says Luis Sanchez-Heres, researcher at RISE and affiliated with C2B2’s workpackage 2 open, data-driven innovation and new technology. 👉🏽Read more.
Invitation
Join researchers, developers, students, and ocean advocates for the first hackathon of the Co-Creating a Better Blue (C2B2) programme — a three-week online event dedicated to tackling real-world challenges in marine spatial data. Participants will collaborate across disciplines to build open digital tools and approaches that support better, data-driven decisions for sustainable ocean management.
- Where: Online
- When: 22 September – 12 October 2025
The Challenge
Marine geospatial data is essential. Too often, however, data is scattered, hard to work with, or missing where it is most needed. This creates barriers for environmental protection as well as maritime activities.
What you will do
This hackathon invites you to take action in one of two impactful ways:
- Fill the Gaps: Help address the data gaps identified in our gap analysis. This could mean building data pipelines, improving existing datasets, proposing new sensing techniques, or exploring creative visualizations that generate new insights. UPDATE (2025-08-29): Take a look at the gap analysis here: https://mistra-c2b2.github.io/Symphony-Layer-Explorer/ We will focus on data used by Symphony, the marine spatial planning tool of the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management.
- Improve the Tool: Contribute to the development of an open-source web application for visualizing and analyzing marine geospatial data. Designed for users with no programming or GIS expertise, the tool aims to make marine data more accessible to a broad audience. You’ll help extend the functionality of the tool, based on a development plan and technical documentation. UPDATE (2025-08-29): Take look at the tool we will improve here: https://github.com/Mistra-C2B2/MSP-Symphony
The tool and data developed during the hackathon will directly contribute to the C2B2 project’s mission of advancing sustainable ocean management through improved access to marine spatial information. They will be used in the project’s Living Labs to support real-world experiments into better ways to manage our oceans.
Format
The C2B2 Hackathon #1 is a three-week online event taking place from 22 September to 12 October 2025.
- Participants can join individually or form teams of up to 4 people. Registration will remain open until the 18th of September 23:59 CET.
- On the first day (22 September), all participants will receive:
- A survey of available marine data and a gap analysis.
- A guide to how to create analysis ready data with a variety of tools.
- A technical description and development plan for the open-source web application.
- Invitations to five online seminars with C2B2 researchers and external experts to discuss the challenges and explore opportunities.
- During the three-week period, teams will work on their solutions. Mentors and technical support from the C2B2 project team will be available throughout.
- Participants will submit their final solutions by the end of the hackathon (12 October).
- A panel of judges will evaluate the submissions between 13–17 October, and winners will be announced no later than 20 October 2025.
Submitted solutions will be assessed based on innovation, environmental impact, technical soundness, user experience, and potential for real-world application. Solutions that align with the goals of the C2B2 project and show promise for use in Living Labs will be particularly valued.
Participants retain full ownership of the ideas and prototypes they develop during the C2B2 Hackathon. However, all materials submitted to the C2B2 Hackathon – such as, but not limited to, code, documentation, or designs – must be submitted under an irrevocable open-source license that enables broad access, reuse, and further development (e.g., MIT or Creative Commons Attribution 4.0). This ensures alignment with the Hackathon’s goal of fostering open collaboration and sustainable marine innovation.
Prizes
The best contributions will be rewarded!
Prizes will recognize both technical excellence and real-world impact. The winning teams will receive SuperPresentkort gift cards:
🥇 1st prize: 5,000 SEK gift card
🥈 2nd prize: 3,000 SEK gift card
🥉 3rd prize: 2,000 SEK gift card
About the Hosts
The C2B2 Hackathon is organized by Co-Creating a Better Blue (C2B2) in partnership with Digital Earth Sweden.
C2B2 is a collaborative research initiative uniting academia, government, industry, and civil society to advance sustainable ocean management. The project champions inclusive, knowledge-based innovation and open science to support the use, restoration, and protection of coastal and marine ecosystems. By bridging gaps between data, decision-making, and action, C2B2 empowers more informed and effective marine policies and practices.
Digital Earth Sweden is a platform for satellite data covering Sweden and the Baltic Sea, aiming to make Earth observation data more accessible and useful to a wide range of users. Built on the National Space Data Lab launched in 2019, it integrates storage, processing, and AI-based analysis of satellite data in one place. The platform follows an Australian model with an open data cube and supports sectors like weather and climate monitoring. By tailoring European Space Agency data to Swedish needs, it helps society address challenges such as climate change at both national and international levels.
Who It’s For
Anyone passionate about oceans and open data! Ideal for students, developers, GIS professionals, marine researchers, designers, and innovators.
Registration
Register by clicking the link below. You may participate alone or in a team of maximum 4 persons. All team members must register and state their team name. If you do not have a team, check the box stating that you are looking for a team and we will do our best to pair you up.
Registration is now open, and closes on the 18th of September.
Poster and banner
Feel free to download and share the poster (pdf), banner and image (png) below:
