GAL02 - How Can Marine Data Improve Freshwater Access for Coastal Communities?

Millions of people living in coastal and fishing communities still struggle to access safe drinking water, despite being surrounded by seawater. While compact reverse osmosis (RO) desalination technology can provide a practical solution, deploying these systems efficiently requires more than hardware—it requires data.  Our team has already developed and field-tested a portable RO desalination MVP. Now we want to explore how marine and environmental data can make these systems smarter, more efficient, and easier to deploy where they are needed most.  This challenge invites developers, data scientists, GIS specialists, oceanographers, designers, and engineers to collaborate on digital tools that support decentralized desalination. Potential solutions could include identifying optimal deployment locations using marine and socio-economic data, predicting water quality and salinity, estimating freshwater demand in coastal communities, optimizing energy consumption based on weather and sea conditions, or creating decision-support dashboards for governments and NGOs.  Participants will have the opportunity to build on a real-world technology with the potential to improve access to safe drinking water, strengthen climate resilience, and support sustainable livelihoods in coastal regions.  If you're passionate about marine data, sustainability, and creating solutions with real social impact, we'd love to have you join this challenge.

Over the 48-hour hackathon, we aim to develop a proof-of-concept digital decision-support platform that uses marine and environmental data to support the deployment and operation of portable desalination systems.

The prototype could integrate publicly available datasets such as seawater salinity, weather forecasts, sea state, population distribution, and freshwater availability to identify suitable deployment locations and estimate operational performance. The platform may include an interactive GIS map, site suitability analysis, water demand estimation, and energy optimization based on local environmental conditions.

Depending on the team's expertise, we would also like to explore predictive models for freshwater production, maintenance planning, or operational recommendations under changing marine conditions.

The objective is not to build a complete product, but to demonstrate how marine data can enhance decentralized desalination systems and support governments, NGOs, and coastal communities in making informed deployment decisions.

We welcome participants from diverse backgrounds who are interested in applying marine data to solve real-world water challenges. The following skills would be particularly valuable:

Software Developer (Web, Mobile, or Full-Stack)
Data Scientist / Data Analyst
GIS & Geospatial Engineer
Oceanographer / Marine Scientist
Environmental Engineer
AI / Machine Learning Engineer
Remote Sensing & Earth Observation Specialist
UX/UI Designer
IoT & Embedded Systems Engineer
Hydrologist / Water Resources Engineer
Climate Data Specialist
Fisheries or Coastal Community Expert