NASA's International Space Apps Challenge convenes global citizens through open data to solve mission challenges. It is NASA's program to spur innovation by fulfilling mandates to open data. Since 2012, the challenge has grown from hosting 75 events to over 770 events in 2015, producing thousands of solutions. The challenge brings technologists and domain experts together to build solutions from well-specified tasks and maintain engagement through regular meetups, documentation, and tying projects to upcoming space missions. Organizers must ensure participation remains diverse and inclusive, prevent a loss of motivation, and continue evangelizing to engage new users.

1. OpenSpace in the
Open Source Community
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4. Innovation through Open Data
NASA’s open data convenes global citizens
through the International Space Apps Challenge to solve mission-
relevant challenges.
Space Apps is NASA’s incubator innovation program
to fulfill federal open data mandates to spur innovation.
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer

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6. Innovation through Open Data
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83
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770
671
947
2012
2013
2014
2015
Events
Solutions Produced
Space Apps: 2012-2015
Beth Beck, NASA’s Open Innovation Program Manager
Office of the Chief Information Officer
2015

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http://www.spaceappschallenge.org/
http://spaceapps.nyc/
http://j.mp/toSpaceVideos
Twitter: @SpaceApps, @SpaceAppsNYC
Meetup: http://meetup.com/Space-Apps-NYC/

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http://star-api.herokuapp.com/

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Over 350 people applied to attend the event, coming
from a myriad of universities, institutions, and tech
startups. We had participants attend from Buzzfeed,
Condé Nast, Etsy, Microsoft, The New School, New York
Times, New York Public Library, ThoughtWorks, Twitter,
and Viacom.

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14. How To Organize A Community?
• Communication: we need to connect with our technologists & maintain relationships
★ Regular meetups, work sprints, compensation / alternative forms of recompense
• Low Barriers To Entry: tutorials (screencasts), glossaries, excellent documentation
★ Domain expert + technologist = FLAWLESS VICTORY
• Decomposition: extremely atomic tasks paired with tons of instruction
★ A good technologist can build anything from a good spec
• Planning: a highly detailed public roadmap, very specific objectives, identify skills
★ This keeps everyone on target, keeps confusion to a minimum
• Organization: keeping clean records of everything
★ Searchable knowledge bases (Stack Exchange?), mailing list archives
• Public Engagement: capture imaginations of all levels of contributor
★ Zooniverse, SETI@HOME, EINSTEIN@HOME
★ Tie-ins to upcoming NASA/ESA/SpaceX/Lightsail/Anybody’s missions
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15. Stuff To Watch Out For
• Participation Inequality: the 1-9-90 rule (Jakob Neilsen)
★ Build several levels of contributing activity into every major task
• Bad Actors: nothing kills community faster than a few rotten apples
★ Code of Conduct, Conventions and Standards, Terms and Conditions
• Loss of Diversity: inclusivity should always be top of mind
★ NASA has always emphasized this! (also relates to Code of Conduct)
• Lost Motivation: sometimes nobody wants to do what must be done
★ There is nothing wrong with incentivizing or establishing bounties
• Losing Users: we must know how users use it to build what’s needed
★ Make user profiles, understand the most common configurations and use
cases
• Obscurity: no one’s going to use it unless we tell them about it
★ Public demonstrations, highlight UGC - Evangelize!!
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Thank You!
Mike Caprio
twitter: @mik3cap
mik3cap@gmail.com
http://mikecapr.io