Charting the Course for the GOES-R DataJam

The GOES-R DataJam is an interdisciplinary competition for college students to collaborate and develop innovative solutions to proposed challenges using GOES-R series geostationary satellite data. The goals of this educational event are to expand the remote sensing knowledge base and technical skillset of the participating students especially from underserved/under-resourced communities, provide them with the opportunity to network with NOAA and NASA professionals, award them with recognition for great ideas, leadership, and teamwork, and inspire them to be the next generation of satellite data users.

The first competition, dubbed the GOES-R Hackathon, was a virtual event held in September 2021 for undergraduate students of any major enrolled in NOAA CESSRST minority serving institutions and included a 48-hour competition period. Using the lessons learned from that pilot run, the event received a name change to the GOES-R DataJam, eligibility was expanded for the 2023 virtual event to include undergraduate and graduate student competitors from across the globe, and the competition period was extended to 2 weeks. With the next GOES-R DataJam scheduled for August 2025, the event will shift from virtual to in-person and will be associated with the NOAA Satellite Conference being held in San Diego, CA.

The change from virtual to in-person will still include many of the same components as the previous events. Before the competition period begins, training sessions will be held on GOES-R topics, including interpretation and application of Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) and Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) data, how to access the open source data hosted on cloud provider systems, and practical coding examples for retrieving and plotting the data. The competition portion will be shortened to a 24-hour period for project development and presentation preparation. As soon as the competition period ends, teams will present their projects to judges for scoring and the winners will be announced shortly thereafter.

This presentation will provide more details on the plans for the GOES-R DataJam 2025, including the benefits the students will receive by shifting from a virtual to an in-person event.