Meet the EU Datathon finalists!
Challenge 1: A European Green Deal
EU Datathon is an annual competition organised by the Publications Office of the EU. It invites people from all around the world to build applications based on EU open data. This year nine teams have been shortlisted to compete in the finals.
Meet the three finalist teams for challenge 1 of the EU Datathon 2021: A European Green Deal. Originally from Spain, Montenegro and India, these open data initiatives support Europe’s ambition of becoming the first climate-neutral continent.
- cleanSpot – “Boost recycling because there is no planet B”
The cleanSpot application provides information and locations of recycling spots (recycling centres, mobile recycling vehicles, specialised containers, etc.) in municipalities all around Spain.
The team’s aim is to raise awareness on and improve the use of recycling spots in Europe through incentivising and gamification. Users can also calculate how much CO2 emissions they save, send notices about recycling spot incidents, receive notifications when mobile recycling vehicles are around, and receive tips about recycling and energy savings.
- FROG2G – “Turn your city FROm Grey 2 Green, one tree at a time”
Although many people recognise the importance of protecting and expanding forests, it is not always clear why this is so important. FROG2G aims to create this awareness and encourage the process of planting new forests for governments, municipalities, NGOs, and private sector initiatives.
By surveying capitals of EU member states, FROG2G will investigate if and why people care about forestation. Together with available statistical data, the effect of forests on our daily life will be shown, for instance in terms of air quality. An interactive visualisation tool will show how many forest areas cities have, where they are, and which type of trees are planted there. Ultimately, this aims to encourage the process of afforestation in the EU.
- The Carbons – “What?! My daily cup of coffee emits as much greenhouse gas as a drive from Berlin to Amsterdam?”
The application aims to educate EU citizens about their carbon footprint and help them make conscious food choices. This, in turn, helps to make the food system more sustainable. The team aims to achieve this via interactive data visualisations.
The Carbons team strongly believe that the mindset of European citizens has to change, to achieve the target of becoming the first climate neutral continent. Did you know for example that cacao beans and coffee have some of the highest GHG emissions? Dark chocolate emits 93.6 kg Co2 eq/100g protein, while beef emits 49.2 kg Co2 eq/100g protein as dark chocolate needs to be eaten more to obtain the same amount of nutritional value. Becoming more aware of these kind of numbers aims to help in changing mindsets across Europe.
Now the teams have four months to turn their ideas into fully functional apps. They will pitch them to the jury at the finals of the competition in November, during the first-ever EU Open Data Days. Curious to learn more? Discover all teams and apps via the EU Datathon website!
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