DT-HEAT+ Team of the CARMINE Consortium wins Most Promising Proposal prize at the Destination Earth 2nd Innovation Challenge - Ideating the Impact of the DestinE Platform
The March-June 2024 Online Innovation Challenge, organized by Destination Earth, presented the 2nd DestinE Platform Innovation Prize on the theme Ideating the Impact of the DestinE Platform.
Participants to the challenge were invited to envision a service that uses capabilities of DestinE, inspired by stories set in the year 2050. The Challenge began on March 20, 2024, and concluded on June 19 with a community event to share results, presentations by winners and public interaction.
Judges from the European Space Agency (ESA), ECMWF and EUMETSAT assessed the proposal based on several criteria: their expected social and environmental impact, novelty, feasibility, alignment with DestinE’s vision, and the quality of their presentation through the visualized mock-up.
The DT-HEAT+ team led by Iphigenia Keramitsoglou, from the National Observatory of Athens, won the Most Promising Proposal prize, rewarding “concepts that bring a novel perspective to uncharted challenges, showcasing innovative thinking and immediate potential - so viable and visionary that it could come to life as soon as tomorrow”.
DT-HEAT+: Integrated Heat Resilience for Tomorrow’s Cities started with an inspirational story that takes place in 2050 during a heatwave where temperatures soar to 50°C. The story follows a family navigating through this extreme scenario, highlighting the critical need for innovative solutions like DT-HEAT+. On a technical level, the proposal leverages digital twin technologies provided by DestinE to integrate emergency services, nature-based solutions, and community engagement, transforming urban centers into resilient havens against extreme heat. It supports multiple stakeholders, enhances emergency responses, improves urban ecosystems, and empowers vulnerable populations, fostering a sustainable, safe, and inclusive city environment ready for the challenges of 2050.
It offers dual timescale solutions: long-term urban planning and a next-day heatwave management tool. The technical implementation, supported by the CARMINE project, uses machine learning to predict heat-related mortality and integrates diverse urban data. In submitting this proposal for the Innovation Prize, the aim was to expand upon the initial concept by incorporating additional features designed to broaden the spectrum of stakeholders who stand to gain from this initiative and to align efforts with DestinE's flagship initiative to amplify the impact and facilitate the scaling of the approach. By integrating these new elements, the proposal enhances the current implementation with a forward-looking perspective and innovation.
This allows for real-time and long-term heatwave management, improving policy-making and urban planning. The mock-up presented has various features, such as optimized ambulance fleet management during heatwaves and gamification elements for children.
Targeted stakeholders range from local governments and urban planners to emergency services and NGOs. DT-HEAT+ provides tools and insights that benefit everyone involved in making cities resilient to extreme heat.
Two additional prizes were awarded: the Radical Realities prize to TwinSphere by Eteoklis Frydas, an AUTh Student, in recognition of the proposal's powerful vision that promises significant future transformations and the BlueSky Concept prize to Henry the tweaker by Peter Kalverla, Jesus Garcia Gonzalez from the Netherlands eScience Center, rewarding the proposal’s creativity and its potential for profound future impact. Winners each receive as awards an online tour of the DestinE platform, a session to discuss proposals with a DestinE applications expert, and a trip for a team member to ESRIN and visit the PHI Experience.
The DT-HEAT+ Team is composed of Dr. Iphigenia Keramitsoglou, Team leader, Earth Observation expert, Proposal submitter, National Observatory of Athens; Prof. Klea Katsouyanni and Prof. Evangelia Samoli, Epidemiologists, National Kapodistrian University of Athens; Prof. Alexandra Tragaki, Demographics expert, Harokopio University; Dr. Eleni Toli and Dr. Panagiota Koltsida, Digital twin experts, Athena Research Centre; Dr. Nefta Votsi and Dr. Evangelos Gerasopoulos, Nature Based Solution experts, National Observatory of Athens; Prof. Christos Zerefos, Climate Change expert, Academy of Athens; Dr. Stavros Solomos and Dr. Christos Spyrou, Urban climate modeling, Academy of Athens; Prof. Sorin Cheval, Urban climatologist (CARMINE Coordinator), National Meteorological Administration, Romania; Dr. Eleni (Lenio) Myrivili, Global Chief Officer, UN Habitat; Prof. Chris T. Kiranoudis, Chief Developer, National Observatory of Athens & NTUA.
What is Destination Earth (DestinE)?
DestinE is an initiative of the European Union that aims to create a digital model of Earth that will be used to monitor the effects of natural and human activity on our planet, anticipate extreme events and adapt policies to climate-related challenges. Using innovative Earth system models, cutting-edge computing, satellite data and machine learning, DestinE will allow its users to explore the effects of climate change on the different components of the Earth system, together with possible adaptation and mitigation strategies.
The DestinE Platform is the point of entry to Destination Earth. It provides users, applications and service providers with direct access to the data and functionalities provided by the other two DestinE components, the Digital Twin Engine and the Data Lake.
Read more about this on the DestinE Platform website, on the European Commission's website or the European Space Agency's blogpost.
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