Binnovative

The International Space Apps Challenge (ISAC) is an international mass collaboration that takes place in cities around the world. The event embraces collaborative problem solving with a goal of producing relevant open-source solutions to advance space exploration missions and improve life on Earth. NASA is leading this global collaboration along with a number of additional government collaborators and local partner organizations.

This year’s themes : Aeronautics, Space Station, Solar System, Technology, Earth, Journey to Mars
Website : Click Here

During the hackathon, we bring together select participants to form teams comprising of people from Japan and Boston. These ‘mixed teams’ are an exciting collaboration opportunity to hone your multi-cultural perspective and entrepreneurial mindset since team-members work collaboratively across the ocean.

Each mixed team consists of about 5-8 participants from Japan and Boston (i.e. 3 from Japan, 3 from Boston) from very different cultural, technical and professional backgrounds. The participants from Japan will join you via communication tool such as Google Hangout and Skype.

April 2:
Event: Information Session
Venue: Boston Children’s Museum
Idea generation and preparation for ideathon

Each participant is highly recommended to have two ideas for Ideathon and create PPT slides (Max. 3 slides for one idea) for the idea pitch at the Ideathon and submitted to a designated folder. Prepare to pitch!

April 9, 7pm- 10pm :
Event: Ideathon
Venue: Cambridge Innovation Center (1 Broadway, Cambridge)

– Self introduction
– Idea pitch using the PPT file submitted in advance.
– Voting for your favorite idea
– Organizers allocate team members based on their favorites, engineering skill sets, and language skill. (Bilingual skills are not required. Organizers will coordinate balanced team.)
IMPORTANT: If you miss the Ideathon, you will be allocated to a team based on your professional skill set and language skill.

April 10 – April 22:
Team meetings as needed

Each team starts communicating and planning for the project. We’ve seen this lead to better team building and better project outcomes. Last year, most groups created a facebook chat group and communicated on chat and had skype or google hangout team meeting 1~2 times before the hackathon.
It will be the beginning of a super exciting cross-cultural experience !!!

April 22 – April 24:
NASA
International Space Apps Challenge!!

Each team works on their project.
IMPORTANT: Because of time difference between the U.S. and Japan, each team need to decide with which time they work on. For example, if the team work with Japan time, Boston members will start hackathon from Friday night on April 22 to Sunday morning on April 24.

Binnovative is a non-profit organization which strives to provide opportunities to communities in Japan and Boston to foster their entrepreneurial mindset as well as multicultural perspectives. Binnovative organizes and leads the Boston venue of the ISAC for the third time this year.