Welcome to Spring’s 2025 International Space Hackathon!
This year’s event invites artists, scientists and engineers from around the world to join us in advancing the frontiers of ecosystem engineering, citizen science, and space biospheres. This hackathon is suitable for students and young professionals.
This year's challenges
- Track 1: The Game of Life - a game about our ecosystem models.
- Track 2: Terrascape - building a reference terrarium through citizen science.
- Track 3: Flashmoss - the fastest way to get a biosphere on the moon.
The 2025 Space Hackathon is structured into two phases: an initial online competition, accessible globally, followed by a regional, in-person final where the most promising teams will showcase their achievements, connect with industry leaders, and compete for the top awards.
Our in-person final will be in Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. Exact locations will be confirmed soon.
Prize
We offer a small cash prize alongside the chance for the winning teams to join and actualise their projects at The Spring Institute (provided both parties agree).
Spring has designed this hackathon to foster creativity and collaboration, bridging the gap between theory and practical application in fields critical to sustaining life on Earth—and beyond.
Timeline
- Registration open : 2 December 2024
- Opening of the expert consultations : 5 January 2025
- Submission Deadline : 1 March 2025
- Finalist Announcement : 9 March 2025
- Regional In-Person Event : April, depending on host region, with final judging and award ceremony.
Sponsors
UnIPod is powered by Timbuktoo, an initiative that aims to mobilize and invest one billion dollars of public and private capital over ten years, to spark the startup revolution in Africa. Unipod Rwanda was established in collaboration with the University of Rwanda, the Ministry of ICT and Innovation and the UNDP Rwanda as part of the UNDP regional bureau for Africa to create a network on university innovation space across Africa.
DoraHacks is a global leader in hackathon organization and one of the most active builder/developer incentive platforms. They fuel the hacker movement and drive innovation across Web3, quantum computing, space tech, and more, offering a wide range of tools that help communities launch initiatives like hackathons, and empower developers to collaborate, fund their projects (BUIDLs), and engage through hackathons, bounties, grants, idea networks, and beyond.
FabLab Rwanda is a space for members to turn innovative ideas into products, specifically in the hardware and electronics domain. The space provides a platform for capacity building and integration of hardware skills with software knowledge. It brings Rwandan innovators closer to the Internet of Things era. It also provides a collaborative community, knowledge base, and innovation business model guidance with a core focus on increasing Rwanda’s competitiveness.
UNIVERSEH is an alliance of seven young and mature universities from seven European countries. It was established in November 2020 to develop a new way of collaboration in the field of Space, within the new “European Universities” initiative promoted by the European Commission.
Seeed Studio has been a leading Open Hardware company since 2008, empowering half a million direct users to create real-world digital solutions. Their product lines include “Sensor Networks” and “Edge Computing.” By embracing open source, community building, and integrated software suites, they provide industrial-ready modules and devices, and open up the capability of prototype, produce, and promote as Fusion service.
The Spring Institute for Forests on the Moon
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