Will There Be No Fish to Eat by 2048? Yukesong Invites You to Protect Marine Fisheries Together
Fishackathon, which links tech people and marine conservation, has come to Taiwan! Fishackathon is hosted by the U.S. Department of State, inviting tech talent from around the world to work together in a "marathon relay" format to develop a set of tech tools that support sustainable ocean development within a short time. This year Taiwan is participating for the first time, hosted by units including the American Institute in Taiwan and the Fisheries Agency. As long as you have programming skills, it does not matter if you cannot tell the difference between a fish and a jellyfish, or if you are unfamiliar with the current state of ocean resource depletion. You are welcome to join and brainstorm together.
Scene from last year's Vancouver Fishackathon competition (Vancouver Aquarium@twitter)
Seeking Tech Tools for Ocean Challenges
The way the Fishackathon competition works is that the U.S. Department of State first solicits topics from all sectors worldwide, then selects distinctive proposals from among them. Take last year as an example: the Aquarium of the Pacific proposed creating a mobile platform to track the feed sources of aquaculture, while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hoped to build a mobile reporting system so that fishermen working at sea who find dying or injured marine animals could report them more immediately. There were also civil society organizations; for example, the World Wildlife Fund also proposed that a mobile app could integrate the national regulations, orders, restricted fish species, and so on of countries around the Indian Ocean, for fishermen or fishing port managers to quickly search online.
The distinctive proposals are announced on the day of the competition, and participating teams then choose the topics they want to work on, followed by a series of team communication, idea generation, writing and coding programs, and other processes. Guo Tingjun, a member of the ocean knowledge community "Taotao Ocean says," who went to observe the competition at the Vancouver venue last year, said that most Vancouver participants were university students. Because the participants all came from the computer science field, they were not necessarily familiar with ocean issues, so many people chose cases that were easier to imagine. For example, last year the Rare Conservation Foundation proposed wanting an automatic measuring board that could measure and record the body length of catches, and many teams chose to develop this.
Participating teams must produce a prototype during the Fishackathon competition period, that is, within 3 days. "So actually the venue does not look dramatic, because everyone is coding!" Guo Tingjun said with a laugh.
After each city finishes holding its Fishackathon, it selects the top three places respectively. The top three works will be sent to an expert committee assembled by the U.S. Department of State for evaluation, from which the world champion is selected. The team that wins the championship will be able to receive support from the U.S. Department of State to help develop its tech tool.
Creative Commons Licensing, Benefits Shared Globally
Moreover, Du Zhenyi, a member of "Taotao Ocean says," added that the tools developed by each team will be published on the global Fishackathon official website under a "CC creative license." These ideas will be shared with the whole world, for relevant units to develop further.
"To some degree, Fishackathon plays the role of a force connecting tech people and environmental conservation organizations," Guo Tingjun said. In addition to letting participating teams try to solve problems with technology, the event can also give people who are not originally in the ocean field a chance to come into contact with ocean issues, and for the proposing organizations it is also a big boost, because they may not have the money or the ability to develop a tech tool.
The 2016 Fishackathon Taipei venue will be held from April 22 to 24 at the Star Rocket Syntrend Creative Park. Detailed information can be found on the registration website or by contacting the American Innovation Center directly.