Society from Space Challenge 2026
Bridging Earth Observation and Social Science for real-world challenges
About the Challenge
Society from Space Challenge 2026 is a two-day, application-based hackathon that brings together Earth Observation, data science, social sciences, humanities, planning, and practice to address real-world challenges.
Satellite data can show us where vegetation, heat, moisture, buildings, and environmental risks are located. But satellite pixels alone cannot explain how people experience those places, who benefits, who is exposed, or what kinds of interventions are meaningful on the ground.
This challenge is designed to bridge that gap. Participants will work in curated interdisciplinary teams to turn geospatial data into human-centred insights, maps, dashboards, and decision-support ideas for urban wellbeing, climate adaptation, and more equitable planning.
The event includes two confirmed challenge tracks: one local track focused on urban green value in Scania, Sweden, and one international track focused on environmental risk and opportunity in Nairobi, Kenya. An additional track may be announced later.
Why Society from Space?
Earth Observation gives us powerful ways to see cities from above. It can reveal patterns of vegetation, heat, water, buildings, infrastructure, and environmental change across large areas and over time.
But urban challenges are not only physical. A park, a street, a courtyard, or a neighbourhood cannot be understood only as pixels on a map. Questions of access, care, identity, inequality, safety, health, and belonging require social interpretation.
Society from Space Challenge 2026 asks what becomes possible when satellite data is combined with human, social, and local knowledge. The goal is to move from observation to understanding, and from maps to practical insights that can support better decisions for urban wellbeing.
The Challenge Tracks
Participants will work in interdisciplinary teams on one of the available challenge tracks. Each track focuses on a different urban context, but both ask the same broader question: how can Earth Observation and social interpretation be combined to create useful insights for real-world urban challenges?
The tracks are designed to be open-ended. Teams will receive a challenge framing, access to relevant data, and support from mentors, but they are not expected to follow a single predefined method. Instead, each team will define its own problem focus, choose appropriate data and methods, and develop a practical output such as a map, dashboard, index, story map, policy concept, or spatial decision-support prototype.
Two challenge tracks are currently confirmed. An additional track may be announced later.
Local Challenge: Green Value and Care from Space
Scania, Sweden
A green pixel is not automatically a valuable place.
Urban vegetation can cool streets, support biodiversity, reduce flood risk, improve air quality, create meeting places, support mental health, and strengthen everyday wellbeing. But vegetation seen from above does not always translate into public value on the ground. Some green spaces are accessible, cared for, used, and meaningful. Others may be fragmented, difficult to reach, poorly maintained, socially invisible, or disconnected from everyday life.
This track investigates how and when urban vegetation becomes genuine public value. Focusing on case areas in Lund, teams will explore how Earth Observation and geospatial data can help identify where urban greenery supports daily wellbeing, where green spaces are under pressure, and where there is untapped potential for climate adaptation and social resilience.
The challenge is not only to map where vegetation exists. It is to ask what that vegetation does, who it serves, how it is experienced, and where it could create greater value.
Teams may explore questions such as:
- Who has access to comfortable urban greenery, and who must travel to reach it?
- Who depends most on public greenery for everyday wellbeing?
- Can urban greening reduce environmental inequality, or can it sometimes reshape segregation?
- Which types of urban greenery strengthen neighbourhood social networks?
- Where is green space present from above, but not useful or accessible on the ground?
- Why do some green interventions survive while others deteriorate?
- Can satellite data help identify care, neglect, pressure, or potential in urban green spaces?
- How can green infrastructure support climate adaptation, dignity, resilience, and public value?
Possible outputs may include a green value map, a cooling justice dashboard, an accessibility analysis, a neighbourhood comparison, a story map, a planning layer, an intervention priority map, or a concept for a decision-support tool.
International Challenge: Mapping Environmental Risk and Opportunity
Nairobi County, Kenya
Rapidly growing cities often experience sharp environmental inequalities that are difficult to capture through conventional, large-scale statistics alone. Within the same city, neighbourhoods can differ strongly in vegetation cover, building density, surface materials, infrastructure, drainage, heat exposure, flood susceptibility, and access to cooling or open spaces. These differences shape everyday wellbeing, public health, mobility, safety, and climate vulnerability.
This track focuses on Nairobi County as a study area. Teams will explore how Earth Observation, GIS, data science, and social interpretation can be combined to identify environmental risks and opportunities across the city. The aim is to develop spatial outputs that can help planners, public agencies, civil society, communities, or researchers better understand where interventions may be most needed.
The challenge is not limited to one environmental issue. Teams may choose to focus on heat, green and blue space access, flood exposure, vulnerable urban form, population exposure, or an integrated view of urban wellbeing.
Teams may explore questions such as:
- Where are heat exposure and thermal stress most concentrated?
- Which areas have limited access to vegetation, water bodies, parks, or cooling environments?
- Where might flood exposure overlap with dense settlements, infrastructure gaps, or exposed populations?
- How do built form, vegetation, population distribution, and environmental risk interact across Nairobi?
- Which neighbourhoods or areas may face multiple environmental pressures at the same time?
- Where are there opportunities for targeted greening, cooling, drainage improvement, or climate adaptation?
- How can satellite-derived information be communicated in a way that is useful for non-technical decision-makers?
- What does Earth Observation reveal, and what does it miss, when used to understand urban wellbeing?
Possible outputs may include a heat exposure map, a green/blue space accessibility dashboard, a flood exposure analysis, a vulnerable urban form map, a multi-indicator wellbeing index, a hotspot prioritisation tool, or a policy-facing spatial prototype.
Additional Track
An additional challenge track may be announced later. More information will be added to this page when available.
Applicants will be able to indicate their preferred challenge track during the application process. Final team formation will be handled by the organising committee to create balanced interdisciplinary teams.
Who Should Apply?
Society from Space Challenge 2026 is designed for people who want to work across disciplines and connect data with real-world urban questions. You do not need to be an Earth Observation expert to apply. The challenge needs both technical and non-technical perspectives.
We are looking for a diverse mix of participants, including:
Social science and humanities scholars: Researchers, students, anthropologists, sociologists, human geographers, urban studies scholars, and others who can help interpret how people experience places, infrastructure, inequality, care, belonging, and wellbeing.
Natural science and technology experts: GIS analysts, remote sensing specialists, data scientists, environmental researchers, programmers, spatial analysts, and others who work with Earth Observation, geospatial data, modelling, coding, or digital tools.
Domain experts and practitioners: Urban planners, landscape architects, municipal decision-makers, public health professionals, civil society actors, consultants, and others who work with real-world urban challenges and decision-making.
Designers, communicators, entrepreneurs, and wildcards: Creative thinkers, storytellers, designers, innovation professionals, students, and people from other backgrounds who can bring fresh perspectives, challenge assumptions, and help turn complex information into useful outputs.
Participants will be selected and matched into interdisciplinary teams by the organising committee. The aim is to create teams that combine technical skills, social insight, domain knowledge, and creativity.
What You Will Do
During the challenge, participants will work in curated interdisciplinary teams on one selected challenge track. Each team will define a problem focus, explore relevant satellite and geospatial datasets, combine technical analysis with social interpretation, and develop a practical output by the end of the event.
Teams may produce a map, dashboard, index, story map, visual report, planning layer, policy concept, or spatial decision-support prototype. The output does not need to be a fully finished product. A clear idea, strong reasoning, transparent assumptions, and practical relevance are enough.
Throughout the event, teams will receive support from mentors, researchers, practitioners, and organisers. The process will include time for problem formulation, data exploration, methods development, interpretation, prototyping, and final presentations.
By the end of the challenge, each team should be able to explain what question they addressed, which data and methods they used, what patterns or priority areas they identified, what uncertainties remain, and how their output could support real-world decision-making.
What You Will Gain
Participants will gain hands-on experience working at the intersection of Earth Observation, geospatial analysis, social science, and real-world urban decision-making.
Selected participants will have the opportunity to:
- work in an interdisciplinary team on a practical urban challenge;
- access curated satellite, geospatial, and contextual datasets;
- receive support from researchers, practitioners, and mentors;
- learn how technical spatial analysis can be combined with social interpretation;
- develop a prototype that could inform planning, climate adaptation, public health, or community-oriented action;
- expand their network across academia, public sector, industry, civil society, and innovation communities.
The event is free of charge for selected participants. Food and refreshments will be provided during the programme. Participants will also receive a certificate of participation.
Prizes and selected recognitions will be awarded during the event. More details will be announced closer to the challenge.
Application Process
Participation in Society from Space Challenge 2026 is application-based. This helps us create balanced interdisciplinary teams that combine technical skills, social insight, domain knowledge, and creative perspectives.
1. Submit your application
Applications will be submitted through an online form. You will be asked to share your background, skills, motivation for joining, and preferred challenge track.
2. Review and team matching
After the application deadline, the organising committee will review all submissions and select participants. The committee will also form teams to ensure a strong mix of expertise across Earth Observation, GIS, data science, social sciences, humanities, planning, policy, practice, design, and other relevant backgrounds.
3. Confirmation and preparation
Selected participants will receive a confirmation email with practical information and preparation materials before the event. These may include challenge details, data access instructions, and other information to help teams get started.
Practical Information
Dates: 19–20 November 2026
Location: Lund, Scania, Sweden
Format: In-person
Participation: Free of charge for selected participants
Language: English
Application deadline: 30 September 2026
The event will take place over two days. Participants will work in interdisciplinary teams, receive support from mentors and organisers, and present their final outputs at the end of the challenge.
Food and refreshments will be provided during the programme. More details about the venue, schedule, data package, mentors, jury, prizes, and final presentation format will be shared with selected participants closer to the event.
Limited travel support may be available, but cannot be guaranteed. Applicants will be able to indicate whether they need travel support in the application form.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Do I need coding or Earth Observation experience to apply?
No. The challenge is designed for interdisciplinary teams. Some participants may bring GIS, remote sensing, coding, or data science skills, while others may contribute expertise in social science, planning, policy, design, communication, local knowledge, or practical decision-making.
Is participation free?
Yes. Participation is free of charge for selected participants. Food and refreshments will be provided during the programme.
Can students and early-career researchers apply?
Yes. Students, PhD researchers, early-career researchers, and practitioners at different career stages are welcome to apply.
Can I choose my challenge track?
You can indicate your preferred challenge track in the application form. The organising committee will consider preferences when selecting participants and forming teams, while also aiming to create balanced interdisciplinary groups.
Do I need to come with a team?
No. Participants apply individually. Selected participants will be matched into teams by the organising committee.
Will data be provided?
Yes. Curated datasets and preparation materials will be shared with selected participants before the event.
Can I use my own data or tools?
Teams may use additional open datasets, tools, or methods where appropriate. Any external data or tools used should be clearly explained, including their source, relevance, and limitations.
When will selected participants be notified?
Selected participants will be contacted after the application deadline. More details will be shared by the organising committee.
Organisers and Supporters
Society from Space Challenge 2026 is organised by SESAC, Mimir Space, and Green Urbansights.
The event is supported by the Swedish National Space Agency, Nordregio, Space Sweden, IDEON Science Park, and other partners contributing to the growing community around Earth Observation, social science, and urban innovation.
For continuous updates, follow SESAC on LinkedIn and check this webpage regularly. More information about the programme, challenge tracks, data package, mentors, jury, prizes, and practical details will be added as the event approaches.