Malaysian team, Terangi, in Hack the Planet finals

KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian team has qualified for the finals of this year’s Hack the Planet competition that focuses on innovative climate and ocean solutions.

The Terangi team’s idea is to deliver a toolbox of important environmental monitoring capabilities on a single technology platform.

The Satellite Applications Catapult and the Commonwealth Secretariat in a statement said the six finalists offered game-changing solutions that leverage the power of satellites to make a real difference in the Commonwealth and world.

“The toolbox included modules for marine conservation areas, climate change and water quality monitoring, and the analysis of potential environmental threats,” it said in the statement dated Oct 7.

Hack the Planet is an entirely virtual international ideas competition that brings together concepts from diverse communities living on the front line in facing the challenges of the climate emergency and ocean sustainability across the Commonwealth, together with the technical resources to support the innovation of new solutions.

It is run by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Satellite Applications Catapult and is supported by Amazon Web Services, Deloitte, Maxar and Planet Labs.The other finalists are from, Gambia, Nigeria, the United Kingdom (two teams), as well as Trinidad and Tobago.

The secretariat said that the ideas and commitment demonstrated by all six finalists greatly impressed the judges.

The finalists will now enter the final stage of the competition for a live pitch event, where they will present their concepts to a panel of judges.

The final event will be livestreamed on Oct 14.

There is a prize pool of £20,000 (about RM113,000), plus over £85,000 (about RM483,000) worth of satellite data and cloud computing services for the winners of the competition.

Earlier in the competition, 30 shortlisted teams were invited to participate in a knowledge exchange programme where they learnt about satellite technologies and elements of design thinking that could support their ideas.

Visit http://hacktheplanetcompetition.com/ for more information about the competition.