New Delhi: The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry Friday announced ‘Urban Geospatial Data Stories Challenge’ to foster adoption of geospatial technologies and promote innovation in the country’s urban ecosystem, a statement said.
Also, the ministry said in another statement that HUA is launching two unique national-level challenges between January 1 and 26 — ‘Freedom 2 Walk & Cycle Challenge for City Leaders’ , and ‘Inter-City Freedom 2 Walk & Cycle Challenge for Citizens’.
The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry said that ‘Urban Geospatial Data Stories Challenge’ has been designed to promote “Geospatial Policy and make India a Geospatial enabled nation”.
“More than 1000 geospatial datasets have been made available to the registered participants from national geospatial agencies, private sector enterprises, scientific and academic institutions, businesses, consumer services & start-ups to analyse this data and create insightful data stories,” the statement said.
It also said that leading up to the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav- Smart Cities: Smart Urbanization’ conference scheduled to be held in Surat in February 2022, the challenge is part of a series of pre-event initiatives being undertaken by MoHUA to foster adoption of geospatial technologies and to promote innovation in India’s urban ecosystem.
The challenge will commence for the registered participants on January 1, 2022 and conclude by the end of the month.
“Sharing and integration of a wide range of data will empower citizens and enterprises to create, assess, and use geospatial data and information for empowering people and making urban services and applications more effective. Built on the concept of ‘open innovation’ & ‘open data sharing’, the hackathon is likely to benefit stakeholders across all cities in India,” it added.
In reference to ‘Freedom 2 Walk & Cycle Challenge for City Leaders’ and ‘Inter-City Freedom 2 Walk & Cycle Challenge for Citizens’, the ministry in statement said that the move aims to build on the successful nationwide campaign titled “Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav- Freedom 2 Walk & Cycle that was held between October 1-3, 2021.
During this event, 100 Smart Cities had actively hosted over 220 events to promote walking and cycling, the ministry said.
The events ranged from activities to empower women and children to walk, run and cycle, to bring more pedestrians and cyclists to the streets, testing temporary interventions and more, it stated.
“During the three weeks running up to 26 January, 2022, the participants will be required to track their walk, run and cycle activities daily and the best performing cities will be awarded at the end of the challenge,” it also stated.
It said that citizens interested to join the ‘Freedom 2 Walk’ and ‘Cycle Inter-City Challenge’ can register for their respective city through the website.