If software is eating the world, surely it must also be able to provide a solution to protect and preserve fresh water. That’s the aim of AquaHacking, an initiative that puts “sustainable governance and technological innovation to work for water.”
On Oct. 6-7, more than 300 researchers, non-profits, government and software developers met in Montreal to discuss water-related issues–the St. Lawrence River in particular–as well as hear from developers who are building web and mobile applications to tackle them.
"More than ever we need to act together to conserve, restore and value this resource," the #StLawrence, says @MhPlante #AquaHacking #water pic.twitter.com/HYeQfBAYuq
— AquaAction (@TakeAquaAction) October 7, 2016
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Why the St. Lawrence
The St. Lawrence isn’t just Montreal’s river. It’s the outflow of the entire Great Lakes basin, flowing from Lake Ontario through Ontario, New York and Quebec to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Atlantic. According to its Wikipedia entry, it has the second-highest discharge of any river in North America after the Mississippi, and its estuary is often described as the largest in the world.
That makes it a lot of things at once: a shipping route, a place to swim and fish, and a home for wildlife, including endangered whales near its mouth. Each of those uses comes with its own data, collected by different agencies at different levels of government, which is part of why a hackathon is a good fit for it.
How AquaHacking Works
AquaHacking is an initiative put on by the de Gaspé Beaubien Foundation and is sponsored by IBM in Canada. More of a movement than an event, #AquaHacking takes place over many months and culminates in a two-day summit event where developers present the apps and tools they’ve built.
That’s a different model from a classic weekend hackathon, where teams build a prototype in 24 or 48 hours and most projects are forgotten by Monday. A longer format gives teams time to talk to the people who would actually use their tools, test their ideas with real data and arrive at the summit with something closer to a working product.
We can't wait until there's no water left before we realize that we can't drink money, says @uOttawa Prof. Sylvie Paquerot #AquaHacking pic.twitter.com/IzJUpGriKo
— AquaAction (@TakeAquaAction) October 7, 2016
This year, 27 teams competed for $50,000 in cash prizes and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cloud technology and services from IBM Canada and IBM’s Global Entrepreneur Program.
Developers leveraged IBM Bluemix to build apps, along with mountains of data (see the bottom of the page here for Git links and downloadable files), including data from:
- Environment Canada
- The City of Montreal
- Montreal Smart and Digital City
- St. Lawrence Global Observatory
- Ministry of Sustainable Development Environment
- Fight Against Climate Change
#AquaHacking fits perfectly with the Canadian government's #cleantech and #innovation agendas, says MP @adhillonDLL #GoC pic.twitter.com/cbvoeMJ7n7
— AquaAction (@TakeAquaAction) October 7, 2016
Open Data Does the Heavy Lifting
The list above is the real enabler. Governments collect huge amounts of information about water quality, river levels, weather and land use, but much of it has historically sat in reports and internal systems that outsiders couldn’t easily reach. When agencies publish that data in formats developers can download and plug into apps, a small team can build something useful in weeks.
The five finalists show what that looks like in practice. Maps for anglers and an early-warning system for swimmers both depend on someone having measured the water and the riverbanks first, while a project like Dronoflow aims to collect more of that data itself.
The 27 teams were shortlisted to five who presented to the crowd at the #AquaHacking Summit on Oct. 7. The five teams and their proposed solutions were:
- Dronoflow, a project that uses drones to capture data, take aerial photography and draw water samples for scientific analysis
- eFish, a project that provides info and shares data to people fishing, along with maps of waterways and access points
- H2EAU, a project that promotes exploration and protection of river assets for educational and recreational use
- Info-Baignade Montréal, a project that provides an early-warning system and tracks risk of microbiological contamination (SAP Micro) in order to predict swimmers against contaminated waters
- Solutions to Innovate, a project that leverages a system of flexible, modular piers that are designed to prevent erosion of riverbanks
While all teams won widespread applause from the event there could only be one winner:
1st place in the #AquaHacking Challenge goes to @infobaignademtl pic.twitter.com/y6B7IxuUhz
— AquaAction (@TakeAquaAction) October 7, 2016
The Jury
The jury mixed technology, business and environmental experience. Mitch Garber, for example, is a lawyer and investor who co-founded the payments company Paysafe and later helped create Caesars Interactive Entertainment, and Garber was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2019.
The jury was made up of:
- Jean-François Barsoum of IBM
- Mylène Paquette
- Mitch Garber, Chairman of Cirque du Soleil
- Caroline Losson, of Keurig Canada
- Philippe III de Gaspé Beaubien
What It Means for Civic Tech
Events like AquaHacking work best when they connect three groups that don’t usually sit in the same room: the people who hold the data, the people who understand the problem, and the developers who can build tools. For anyone running a similar challenge, the lesson is to line up the data sources and the end users before the coding starts, and to give teams enough time to turn a demo into something that can survive after the prizes are handed out.
One practical note for anyone revisiting these projects: IBM later replaced the Bluemix name with IBM Cloud, so the platform the 2016 teams built on now goes by a different name.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is AquaHacking?
AquaHacking is an initiative that puts "sustainable governance and technological innovation to work for water." It is put on by the de Gaspé Beaubien Foundation, was sponsored by IBM in Canada, and runs over many months before ending in a two-day summit.
What happened at the 2016 AquaHacking summit in Montreal?
On Oct. 6-7, 2016, more than 300 researchers, non-profits, government representatives and software developers met in Montreal to discuss water issues, especially the St. Lawrence River. Five shortlisted teams presented their apps at the summit on Oct. 7.
What prizes were available to AquaHacking teams?
In 2016, 27 teams competed for $50,000 in cash prizes and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cloud technology and services from IBM Canada and IBM's Global Entrepreneur Program.
Which data did AquaHacking developers use?
Teams built apps on IBM Bluemix using data from sources including Environment Canada, the City of Montreal, Montreal Smart and Digital City, the St. Lawrence Global Observatory and Quebec's environment ministry.
Who were the five AquaHacking 2016 finalists?
The finalists were Dronoflow, eFish, H2EAU, Info-Baignade Montréal and Solutions to Innovate. Their projects ranged from drones that draw water samples to an early-warning system for swimmers and modular piers to prevent riverbank erosion.