Winners of NASA Space Apps Challenge Georgia Revealed from a Beeline-Supported Hackathon

Beeline is a telecommunications brand known for its focus on youth and an innovative, better future. Following this strategy, Beeline has been rooting for hackathons to take place in Georgia for several years, and 2020 was no exception.

Co-organized by the Tbilisi Startup Bureau and Ilia State University, from October 2 to 4, an online hackathon took place in Georgia. This is the second time Beeline, a member of international group VEON, has supported a local competition for the largest international hackathon in the world.

The NASA Space Apps Challenge takes place over 48 hours in 225 different places around the globe, aiming at generating ideas that will help solve real global problems. Anyone interested in studying the Earth and space, coding, technology, design, and other applied sciences, can participate in the NASA Space Apps Challenge. For its ninth annual event, this year NASA presented 22 challenges, divided into six categories: observation, informing, maintaining, creating, confronting, and connecting. The winning teams have already been awarded cash prizes and are now participating in NASA’s global prize competition.

The judges decided to award the first place prize to Fire Detectors, a team compiled by Karlo Tevzadze, Mariam Shereshashvili, and Giorgi Tkebuchava, all Ilia University students. ‘The Two Degrees,’ a team of four high-school juniors (Davit Domuzashvili, Nika Svanidze, Nika Gaprindashvili, and Aleksandre Lashkarava) came second.

"We identified several ways to solve a problem, which led to a common goal: to find the source of fire through a grid we created, before the fire went beyond a small scale, in some cases even before it arose, and to strengthen observation at these points. The project aims to create software that will process past data on fires by location, as well as take into account the weather forecast, time of year, days of the week, forest development area, tourist routes, etc. All the details that could have an effect on the origin of a fire,” Shereshashvili, a member of Fire Detectors, told us.

"We believe that bringing emission statistics to the local level is one of the most important steps one can take to tackle climate change. Our project aims to assist regional governments in implementing climate change mitigation measures and reducing Georgia's GHG emissions by 25% under the Paris Agreement. The project includes a code that can easily be used to regionalize emissions from other countries,” said Domuzashvili, member of The Two Degrees.

Supporting hackathons is just one example of Beeline’s continued support for the start-up ecosystem, and the development of innovations in the country, prioritizing the creation of new opportunities for youth while stimulating their aspirations. Tbilisi Startup Bureau and Beeline first collaborated within the scope of NASA Space Apps Challenge back in 2019.