The purpose of this challenge is to use remote-sensing data and satellite images to help form a better understanding of societal trends as affected by COVID-19. Your challenge is to discern how human activity in communities of minority, low-income, tribal, and indigenous populations have changed as a result of COVID-19.
COVID-19 made us realize the damage this pandemic is causing to minorities, deepening their already unjust living conditions: suicides from the LGTBQIA+ community have skyrocketed, children with disabilities' health has declined, and migrants and refugees have been left aside of the health system. These minorities require access to information to fight against these unfair conditions. We want to shine a light on them by using the EO dashboard data to visualize the places with no connectivity and start amending the injustices.
We wrote a research paper exploring the injustice in access to electricity and information in the population using Earth Observation Dashboard data and satellite images from NASA. To raise awareness in our communities we created a video containing facts about the current situation of minorities worldwide. In this video we also make a call for donation. The money we raise goes to the United Nations Refugee Agency.
Paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i1TnMIBTsCn2OgJLWPIlWGnQUoLcGHDb/view?usp=sharing
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhX23ElR9Gc
Humanity has to be informed about the grave inequity between different population groups so that we can start to make a change as a people. We also want to bring across how accessible and easy to use satellite image are and demonstrate the power that lies within them.
The paper provides an in depth yet simple to understand and eye-opening insight into the situation of children with disabilities, refugees and LGBTQIA+ community members during this coronavirus pandemic. Additionally, we shot a short video (not the demo) containing the most important facts.
We, a Swiss-Chilean team of three, met through our work for the student-led space analog mission Asclepios. We are space enthusiasts, rocket engineers, scientists and aspiring moon walkers with a big heart for our home planet, its environment and inhabitants. We believe in a better world for minorities, which is why we seek to reveal injustice and develop sustainable solutions. The international nature of our team offers us a unique perspective and a diverse community to reach out to.
Pride month inspired us to look at LGBTQIA+ community, while in person volunteering experience with children and refugees in the past has shown us the urgent need for change.
All of our team members faced some challenges. Here we list the most notable ones. During the hackathon one team member a faced two lengthy power blackouts in Chile, preventing them from working on the hackathon for several hours. Despite their knee injury they walked to another neighborhood that still had electricity to work from there. The second team member was traveling from Chile to Switzerland during the time of the hackathon, working offline in the airplane for a few hours. The third member of the team was working at a hospital during three days of the hackathon.
To improve the understanding and visualization of societal trends using satellite data in the Earth Observation Dashboard, the following aspects are suggested for implementation in the future.
The list of data and resources can be found in the paper.
#minorities #refugees #nightlights #LGBT # LGBTQIA+ #COVID19 #populationdensity #justice #children #disabilities #rural #internet #health
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.