Showcase your skills, collaborate with like-minded individuals, and compete for prizes of up to £2,000!
Wednesday 20th November 2024 to Tuesday 26th November 2024
Geo:TAM Challenge
*Photo by Ed O’Keeffe | CC License | www.edwud.com
Welcome to Rebalance Earth’s GeoTAM (Geospatial Total Addressable Market) Challenge!
What is the challenge?
The purpose of this open-source hackathon is to develop proof of concept methods to estimate the turnover of business locations in the UK.
When does it begin?
The GeoTAM Challenge will commence on November 20th 2024 at 12:00 PM GMT.
It will last six full days, and entries are to be submitted before the final deadline on November 26th, 2024 at 12:00 PM GMT.
Where will it be hosted?
This hackathon will be held virtually. To participate, sign up using the button above and then join the community Discord server.
Prizes to be won:
£2,000
£1,000
£500
Additional Opportunities:
Winning entries may also be offered contracted work with Rebalance Earth to further develop or implement their solution(s).
*Prize money will be transferred to the main contact for the team. We cater to international payments. All prizes are at the discretion of the organising committee, and the judges' decisions are final.
More specifically:
Where possible, we are interested in the turnover related to specific locations – an individual shop or factory or branch rather than the whole company.
We will focus on a particular area of interest (AOI): Manchester, UK.
We are interested in ‘physical’ or ‘boots on the ground’ businesses like retail, manufacturing, warehousing and so on, as opposed to businesses that can easily work remotely (like offices, call centres, law firms, consultancy companies etc).
We are not expecting a fully complete implementation: a proof-of-concept of a novel method for doing this estimation would be sufficient.
We don’t know the right answer! That is, we don’t currently have a dataset of individual location turnovers to check how accurate you are. However, we do have some ways of manually checking answers for plausibility, and the potential to collect ground-truth data in the future. This obviously makes the task more complex, but also allows for the development of novel approaches which can inform the data we collect in the future to verify and validate model outputs.
The aim of this hackathon is to develop an open-source proof-of-concept method for estimating the turnover of individual business locations in the UK only.
For example, a method might be able to estimate the turnover of a specific supermarket branch, or a particular manufacturing plant.
The Task:
The Task:
Photo by Aitchison | CC License | https://www.aitchisondevelopments.com/
Access to Datasets
We will provide various datasets for the AOI (Manchester), including business locations and business rates—taxes on commercial properties used to fund local services—along with other non-public business data.
Support and Guidance
We will provide mentorship for ideas and approaches you might be able to take, and pointers to other datasets that may be useful to you.
Reasonable Financial Allowances
We will also provide funding for purchasing (affordable) additional commercial datasets to use as part of your solution. See the details of this in the Terms and Conditions below.
A Community Discord Server
We will provide access to our community discord server, which contains relevant channels to engage with and find teammates, bounce ideas off the open-source community, receive guidance from administrators and access to our datasets.
What we will provide:
What you need to provide:
Team Participation
You have the option to participate individually or, ideally, as part of a team. Should you choose to form a team, please appoint a primary contact person and agree on a team name collectively.
Innovative Ideas
We value creativity and novel approaches to problem-solving. Feel free to submit your ideas, even if you lack the time or skills to fully develop them. We're interested in your vision and concept.
Connectivity Requirements
Participants must have access to a stable internet connection for Q&A sessions and communication via Discord.
Final Submission Guidelines:
All final submissions must be received by November 26, 2024, at 12:00 PM GMT.
Your submission should include:
A code repository containing the implemented code for your project. Ensure the repository contains a README file with instructions on installation, setup, and operation.
Consider including additional materials such as a PDF, slides, or a video that explain your method conceptually, detail the relevant input and output data, and demonstrate some results.
Openness:
We encourage teams to develop their solutions openly on platforms like GitHub to foster collaboration and collective learning. However, we respect if you prefer to keep your repository private until submission due to the competition's nature.
All submitted entries will all be released as open-source code on Github when the hackathon is completed, under the MIT license. For more information on our stance toward openness, please read our Open-Source Manifesto.
Scoring criteria
As mentioned above, we don’t have a full dataset of ‘right answers’ to compare your results to, so the scoring can’t be based just on accuracy statistics. Instead, your final score will be made up of:
50% the average score that other teams give to your entry.
50% score from our internal organising committee
Each of these scores will be made up from the following five components, for a maximum score of 50 points. The total score will be comprised of 50 points from other teams and 50 points from the organising committee, giving a total maximum of 100 points.
Component 1: How close are you to getting to the 'correct’ answers? (Max 10 points)
We don’t have a full dataset of correct answers, but we do have some limited data and a definite sense for what is plausible. Do the results look sensible? Do they align with publicly available data on turnovers? Can you demonstrate this? Is there a proposal for gathering extra data to confirm your approach?
Component 2: How novel is the approach taken? (Max 10 points)
Does the solution take a novel approach that seems like it could produce useful results, even if the hackathon implementation doesn’t show its full potential? Does it use interesting open datasets? Does it apply interesting domain knowledge?
Component 3: How simple is the approach taken? (Max 10 points)
Can it be run efficiently on large areas? Does it require complex software, complex datasets or significant time and expertise to run? Simple is generally better, as long as it still gets useful results!
Component 4: How broadly applicable is the method? (Max 10 points)
Does it work for only one industry (such as supermarkets, or warehousing)? Does it work for only one area (such as the hackathon AOI in Manchester)? Can it be replicated across the rest of the UK? Across Europe? Across the whole world?
Component 5: How well have you leveraged open or freely-available data? (Max 10 points)
Is your project entirely based on free data? Have you used a less well-known dataset in an interesting way? Paid datasets are not forbidden in this hackathon, but we have a definite preference for open data (or at least freely-available data).
Introductory Webinar:
For further clarity on the challenge brief, please watch the following 20-minute introductory webinar. This webinar provides some context around who we are, and why TAM identification is necessary for our mission. The webinar also outlines some potential strategies you might consider in tackling the challenge.
Drop-in Sessions:
Similarly, if you have any questions please join the ‘drop-in’ voice channel on our Discord server. Every day, we will host drop-in sessions where you and your team are able to ask questions, discuss your approaches and gain insights from the open-source community. These sessions will begin on November 20th.
Session #1:
Held every day from 9am-10am UTC / 4am-5am EST.
Session #2:
Held every day from 2pm-3pm UTC / 9am-10am EST.
Terms and Conditions
By participating Rebalance Earth’s GeoTAM Challenge Hackathon, you agree to the following terms and conditions. These rules are designed to ensure a transparent and fair competition for all participants, whilst fostering innovation, collaboration and a positive community.
ELIGIBILITY:
In line with our core values, this hackathon is open to anyone, globally. However, the event will operate primarily in the GMT time zone.
Participation is free of charge and fully virtual.
We intend to create an inclusive, accessible, and engaging environment for everyone regardless of skillsets or capability.
The competition is open to any age range, however, we require participants under the age of 18 to disclose this in the sign-up form, and to obtain prior consent from your legal guardian.
TEAM AND INDIVIDUAL ENTRIES:
We encourage participants to work in teams, as collaboration often leads to more dynamic and creative solutions. However, solo entries are completely fine too. Here are a few guidelines around team and individual participation:
Team Entries:
Teams can consist of any number of members. You are free to form teams with participants from any location. Virtual communication channels, like the GeoTAM Challenge Discord, will be provided to accommodate this. We recommend that participants form teams with diverse ways of thinking and skillsets. Teams will need to designate one member as the primary contact person. This person will be responsible for handling communication with event organisers and receiving any prize money should the team win. It is the responsibility of this person to distribute prize money between the team. Once the prize money has been distributed to the main contact, Rebalance Earth will have no further involvement in any further distribution of the prize money.
Individual Entries:
Individual entries are equally welcome. We recommend that you join and monitor virtual communication channels, like the GeoTAM challenge Discord, to connect with the community and leverage any information shared here. As an individual entry, you agree that the solutions and submitted are solely your own work.
COMPETITION REQUIREMENTS
All projects must be initiated and developed during the hackathon period. Pre-existing projects or submissions are not allowed.
To participate, you must register through the event’s sign-up form before its close on November 20th, 2024.
You must register only once. Registering as both an individual and part of a team is not allowed. Participants believed to be entering more than once will be disqualified.
Participants are encouraged to use open-source technologies and freely available data.
If you wish to use paid datasets, please contact the administrators on Discord for prior approval. Expenses will be reimbursed on a case-by-case basis.
Projects must be open-source and made publicly available on GitHub or another open platform by the end of the hackathon. We understand that given the open-source scope and competitive nature of the competition, participants may want to develop their work on a private repository. This is permitted, but the repository must be made public by the hackathon close on November 26th 2024.
Participants must create a README file in their submission, which details the proper way to install, set up and run the code / method that has been developed.
Some sort of explanation presentation must be provided alongside the code, to describe how the method works, the reasoning behind its approach and design, and show some relevant inputs and outputs. This can be in the form of a set of slides (in PDF format) or a video (as a MP4 file or shared on YouTube or a similar platform).
AGREEMENTS AND DATA USAGE
Participants must handle all provided datasets, especially non-public data like the OpenLocal business rate data, with confidentiality and must not distribute them outside the hackathon's scope.
All code, solutions, and submissions created during the hackathon will remain the intellectual property of the participants. However, all projects must be open-sourced under an MIT license.
Rebalance Earth reserves the right to showcase and feature winning projects on its platforms and may offer further collaboration opportunities to winning teams.
Winning participants reserve the right to remain anonymous, in which case it is their express duty to make the assessors / discord administrators aware of this.
Participants' personal data, including email addresses, Discord handles, and banking information, will be used exclusively for the purposes of managing the hackathon, facilitating communication, and processing payments. We are committed to ensuring the confidentiality and security of your personal data and will not share it with third parties without your explicit consent. Your data will be retained only for the duration necessary to fulfill these purposes or as required by law. You have the right to access your personal data, correct any inaccuracies, request its deletion, and withdraw your consent at any time.
JUDGING TERMS:
The combined decision of the communities’ 50% and the assessor’s 50% judgement weighting is final and cannot be contested. In the unlikely circumstance that two participants hit the same score the final deciding vote will be done by the assessors.
CODE OF CONDUCT:
We are committed to creating a safe and welcoming environment for everyone.
We strongly encourage participation from individuals of all backgrounds, including those from underrepresented groups in technology and data science. We are dedicated to providing a space where everyone can contribute, learn, and thrive in a way that promotes inclusivity and open-source values.
All participants are expected to treat each other with respect, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic.
Harassment or discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated.
Violations of this code may result in disqualification and removal from the hackathon.
If you experience or witness any form of harassment or discrimination, please contact the event organisers immediately through Discord.
DISCLAIMERS:
We strongly condemn any unethical or illegal use of data, committed to upholding the law and ethical standards.
It is at the sole discretion of Rebalance Earth and the assessment committee to postpone or cancel the hackathon at any point in any time.
We reserve the right to disqualify you for any actions that we consider inappropriate.
In the event that there are too few entrants by the registration date close, Rebalance Earth reserves the sole discretion to cancel or postpone the event.
Similarly, if there are too many participants, Rebalance Earth reserves the sole discretion to adjust the judging mechanism, removing the 50% vote from the community and instead allocating a 100% vote weighting to the organising committee to judge entrants’ submissions. This is due to the logistical infeasibility of running a community voting system efficiently, in a timely manner, with a large number of team and individual participants.