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Join our special edition of the Sentinel Hub Custom Script Contest - Climate Change - focusing on demonstrating effective change detection related to climate change. Submit your scripts or written stories until 30th June 2022. See details below!

Sentinel Hub Custom Script Contests

Remote sensing is making its way into more and more applications and fields. Tools like the Sentinel Hub EO Browser with its custom scripting allow all people to browse, analyse and visualise satellite data in almost real-time.

Together with our partners, the Euro Data Cube (EDC), the Copernicus EU Earth Observation programme, the European Space Agency, and the World Meteorological Organization we are looking for new and innovative ideas and scripts. Therefore, we have organised a series of the Sentinel Hub Custom Script Contests starting with the first one in Spring 2019 and following with the second one in Winter 2019/2020. In April and May 2020 we organised a special edition of the Contest - the Covid-19 Custom Script Contest. Its aim was to help the world facing huge challenges getting back to ’normal’ after the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic. The success of the series motivated us to continue with the third edition of the Contest in Summer 2020. The last special edition of the contest - Urban Growth in Africa - was organized in May 2021. To learn more about the results of our previous contests, visit the Past Sentinel Hub Custom Script Contests page.

Join the Climate Change Custom Script Contest!

This special edition of the Sentinel Hub Custom Script Contest is organized in partnership with the World Meteorological Organization. The contest started on 15th March 2022 and will end at midnight on 30th June 2022. The objective of this activity is to demonstrate the power of EO data in helping detect the effects of climate change.

Contest Image Collection
A selection of visualisations created with the custom scripts submitted to the second round of the Sentinel Hub Custom Script Contest. Check also one of our blog posts for more information.

Categories

Custom Scripts

We would like the Contest to be completely open. Therefore, all submitted scripts will compete under a common category, regardless of which data collection (Sentinels, Landsat, commercial data, etc.) the scripts use. We are particularly interested in scripts demonstrating efficient change detection related to climate change.

Written Stories: “How to best communicate climate change via EO data”

You don’t have the skills to create a script? No problem, write a Story then! Use EO data to write a matching story focusing on how to communicate climate change via EO data. It can include a pin story, but the focus should be on the written story (see our Pin Story guide for more about pin stories).

How to Create a Script?

If you need some help and instructions on how to get started with custom scripting for the EO Browser we suggest you read:

If you are new to scripting, we would suggest that you check out our friendly Custom Script Tutorial, which will guide you through the first steps and help you create simple custom scripts. The guide is intended for beginners, who are not familiar with coding or remote sensing. For more information, watch also our webinars on Custom Scripts and Multi-Temporal Scripts and Data Fusion.

Attractive Prizes

Best Custom Scripts Awards

We will award the best custom scripts as follows:

First Prize

Second Prize

In addition to the above, we will award the best custom script by a high school student or high-school team with a box of goodies. We would specially like to encourage the beginners and students to give it a try and submit their scripts.

All winners will also get an opportunity to highlight their winning scripts in the Sentinel Hub blog, advertised by Sentinel Hub and ESA.

Best Written Stories Awards

The best written stories How to best communicate climate change via EO data will be awarded as follows:

Firs Prize

Second Prize

In addition to the above, we will award the best written story by a high school student or high-school team with a box of goodies.

The stories will be judged differently. We want to see you use EO data available in the EO Browser, but the priority will be the story itself. In this case, writing a new custom script is not necessary, you can also use integrated visualisations as well as already existing scripts.

WMO Internship Award

Our contest partner, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), is offering an internship to a participant of their choice. The internship offered will last six months and will take place in Geneva at WMO headquarters. A selected candidate will have the opportunity to learn more about WMO activities, in particular the WMO Space Programme.

Details of the WMO internship offer:

  • The internship will be performed at WMO in Geneva. Available is one position.
  • WMO will provide a minimum daily per diem.
  • We are looking at a six month placement.
  • The work will be with the WMO Space Programme working with database visualisation/web presence.
  • In the submission form all participants have to indicate their interest in a placement and if so provide their CV.
  • WMO will announce the Internship on their webpage and those interested would then be considered as part of the recruitment process.

Wildfire in Turkey
A Wildfire in Turkey, Sentinel-2 image acquired on August 2, 2022. The Wildfire script by Pierre Markuse and modified Highlight optimized natural color script which equalizes exposure for the RGB band combination B12, B11, B08. It shows heated and burned areas in reddish colors, and vegetation in blue.

Requirements

  • All scripts must run within the Sentinel Hub EO Browser.
  • All scripts have to be handed in as text files before 30th June 2022 (23:59 CEST).
  • Together with the script, you have to hand in a proper description of what your script can be used for and explain how it achieves the results produced. You can include the description in Jupyter Notebook or in a separate file.
  • By handing in a script, you confirm to be the sole author(s) of the script and to have the necessary rights to do so.
  • Every single participant or group can hand in up to three scripts.
  • All entries must be licensed under the Creative Commons BY license, so they can be added to the custom scripts repository and be used freely by all.

The Contest is open worldwide.

In addition to the general description of the script, the following information is required:

  • Scripts’ applicability
  • False detection problems (if any)
  • Detailed description of how the script works
  • Representative cases / images with details
  • Visualisation in EO Browser (a link to a working script)
  • References
  • Credits - In case your script is based on other people’s work you have to make sure to include the necessary citations and links to relevant papers.

By participating in the Contest, the participants confirm that they have read and agreed with the Terms and Conditions of the Sentinel Hub Custom Script Contest as well as with the Sentinel Hub’s Terms of Service.

Guidelines

Shrinking Aletsch Glacier, Switzerland
Shrinking Aletsch Glacier, Switzerland as seen with Landsat 1989-2021. Explore it yourself in EO Browser and see our gallery for details

We are especially interested in the scripts covering one of the following:

  • effective detection of environmental changes that could be caused by climate change
  • data fusion on multi-resolution imagery

Please note that if your script is a really cool one and does not meet the above guidelines, we will still consider your script and evaluate it under the same conditions as the rest.

Tools

EO Browser

  • Participants get free access to all features of EO Browser, a powerful tool for exploring satellite data collections.
  • To get started quickly with EO Browser, we recommend the EO Browser web page and EO Browser webinar.
  • Use all cool features provided by EO Browser! To do so, you need an EO Browser account. You can sign up for a free EO Browser account here.
  • EO Browser also supports the use of custom scripts to visualise satellite data.
  • To help you get started with custom scripting, we provide a beginner’s tutorial on basic custom scripting, Evalscript documentation for more complex scripting options such as multi-temporal scripting, and a custom script repository with numerous custom script examples that can be used immediately.

Submission

Submit Your Custom Script or/and Written Story

To submit a custom script or/and written story, you need a Gmail account. If you don’t have one, a new Gmail account can be created by following the instructions published here. With a Gmail account you can submit your script or written story by filling out the forms available at the following links:

Submit Custom Script Submit Written Story

Our Jury

Adam Voiland

Adam Voiland has been a science writer for NASA Earth Observatory since 2012. He covers a range of topics, though natural disasters, weather, climate change, human impacts, hydrology, wildfires, and volcanology are particular interests. In addition to reporting and editing Image of the Days and long-form feature stories, Voiland plays an active role in maintaining the Earth Matters blog and social media @NASAEarth.

Harel Dan

Head of Remote Sensing and GIS at 4M-Analytics, a sub-surface utility mapping company. His skills are satellite and aerial imagery interpretation and analysis, as well as long-term surface trends, landcover and landcover change delineation, and a general interest in anything that can be observed from above, natural or man made.

Hayley Evers-King

Hayley Evers-King is a marine EO scientist with a focus on Sentinel-3 and ocean colour. Hayley has worked on a wide variety of topics including water quality, ocean heat flux, and carbon pools. She is passionate about growing the use of EO data and currently supports EUMETSAT on user support and training activities for their Copernicus missions. She believes science communication is part of every scientists job and has been involved in many activities promoting EO science, from the creation of ocean MOOCs, youtube videos, and open source python tutorials, to music compositions, poetry evenings, and cooking demonstrations.

Heikki Pohjola

Heikki Pohjola is working as Scientific Officer at WMO Space Programme. Before his career at WMO he worked at EUMETSAT as a Remote Sensing Scientist for Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) satellite mission and especially on its Lightning Imager (LI) instrument development. Before EUMETSAT he worked for a decade in the field of weather radars and lightning detection systems in private sector at Vaisala. He holds MSc in Meteorology from the University of Helsinki, where he started his career working at Finnish Meteorological Institute as a research scientist in the field of remote sensing.

Joshua Stevens

Joshua Stevens is the lead visualizer and cartographer of the NASA Earth Observatory. He has researched and taught cartographic design, geovisual analytics, and remote sensing for more than a decade. Prior to working with NASA, Joshua was an NSF IGERT Fellow in big data social science at The Pennsylvania State University, where he pursued a Ph.D. in geography. His work has been featured by a variety of media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, and the Discovery Channel.

Maxim Lamare

Maxim acquired a PhD in geosciences from Royal Holloway University of London/National Physical Laboratory, United Kingdom. He has four years of postdoctoral experience. He is an expert in remote sensing with optical data and has been working as a product manager at Sentinel Hub GmbH since 2020.

Miha Kadunc

Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder of Sinergise

Rafa Cereceda

A longtime journalist and editor for Euronews. Since 2018, he has been working with EO sources to illustrate and identify the impact of climate change on our planet. He recently joined ECMWF as Content and Science Writer for the Copernicus ECMWF services and Destination Earth. In particular, he reported on the exceptional wildfire seasons in the Arctic or Amazonia, the Greenland melt, or the 2020 ozone hole in the Northern Hemisphere.

Sophie Hebden

Sophie Hebden is a research coordinator on Earth observations for Future Earth, and is liaison to the European Space Agency, based at ESA's Climate Office in Harwell, Oxfordshire. Her work spans Earth observation for climate science and communication, and she is passionate about making research findings accessible through animations, blogs, syntheses and briefings, infographics, web apps and more. Before joining Future Earth in 2019 she worked in the UK's National Centre for Earth Observation and as a freelance science writer and editor with articles and podcasts featured in the New Scientist magazine and the Foundational Questions Institute.

Evaluation Criteria

  • Originality
  • Scientific relevance
  • Global applicability (scripts that can run on different parts of the world rank better)
  • Business/Commercial potential
  • Visual appeal

FAQ

  • When and how will I be informed about results?

    • We will announce the winners of the Contest on this web page latest on 9th August 2022. However, everyone will also be informed by e-mail within 3 working days after the announcement.

  • Can I base the script on a publicly available research paper?

    • Yes, of course. We believe there is a lot of useful research available in the EO domain and it should be used to all its extent. You should however appropriately credit the work in the accompanying document.

  • Do I need to subscribe to Sentinel Hub to participate in the Contest?

    • No. EO Browser is a free tool. In case you need some advanced features (e.g. time-lapse, comparison, etc.), you can create a free account. If you would actually require Sentinel Hub web services to fine-tune your script, you can use a 30-days free trial option or simply send us an e-mail and we will ensure you can do your work.

  • My script stops working after it becomes too long.

    • There is indeed a technical limit on number of chars, which can be passed over HTTP. But no worries, there is a simple way to solve it.

  • I am more interested in sharing knowledge than a monetary prize. Should I still participate?

    • Of course, this is the main objective of this Contest. If you do not want to receive the prize, you can name a philanthropy organisation of your choice and we will donate the amount to them.

  • Can I submit scripts that just look nice?

    • The main goal of this action is to share knowledge. However, art is important as well and we all need to be aware of the beauty of our Planet, so go ahead!

  • If I do not win the prize, will my script still be added to the Custom Script repository?

    • We plan to add all the scripts that seem sound to the repository. We will also be publishing a stream of short blog posts about all interesting scripts.

  • I have submitted a script but now I want to correct it. What should I do?

    • No problem. Simply submit a new version of the script and state very clearly at the beginning that this submission is replacing a previous one.

  • Where can I get more information?

    • Ask a question on our Forum and we will respond ASAP.

See also Terms and Conditions of the Sentinel Hub Custom Script Contest for more details.