19 - WELCOME PARTICIPANTS

There is a PLACE for every FACE in SPACE.

There is no better opportunity than to join the dynamic and diverse NASA International Space Apps Challenge.

There is no better place than the iconic Kennedy Space Center - Visitor Complex.

There is no better time than non-stop from October 7 – 8, 2023.

There is no better way to reach for the stars than thru the new Space Renaissance and our new Race to Space.

There is no better path to your space future than our over 50-year revival of our Artemis Return to the Moon.

There is no better avenue to supporting your community & country than by a laser focus on Missions That Matter.

18 - WELCOME DIVERSITY

We are calling on your best creativity, ingenuity, ideas, and innovations. Be part of the single largest hackathon-style event in the entire...universe. Connect with other students, interns, employees, and young professionals with:

Diverse Ages
Diverse Skills
Diverse Fields
Diverse Levels
Diverse Talents
Diverse Interests
Diverse Geographies
Diverse Backgrounds
Diverse Organizations

Together, you will explore space and Earth through hands-on team cooperation and collaboration.

17 - WELCOME EVERYONE

In addition to traditional populations of students and professionals, we also especially encourage participants from non-traditional, under-represented, and under-served demographics to join. We now especially invite, along with our traditional participants, groups that sometimes find themselves under-represented. These groups include, for example:

Economically Disadvantaged
Military-Connected Children
Military-Children
Military Spouses
Active Military
Woman & Girls
Veterans
Disabled
LGBTIQA+
Hispanic
Black
Asian
Pacific-Islander
Native Alaskan
Native American
Native Hawaiian

16 - WELCOME SOLUTIONnauts

You might not quite be totally ready to be a full-fledged astronaut or rocket scientist exploring the challenging possibilities of outer space. However, you do already have the right stuff to be a SOLUTIONnaut, exploring the challenge possibilities of a solution space.

Unlike the seemingly backwardly reversed approach of traditional ideation or even of start-ups, which begin only with an idea, you will follow the powerful entrepreneurial path of our most successful companies. They first uncover meaningful tough problems. Only then do they formulate, create, construct, and engineer meaningful solutions to solve those problems.

By analyzing our most pressing problems first, you will be already taking the first small step toward solution success. The not-so-secret secret remains to Begin-with-the-End-in-Mind**.

The SPACE SOLUTIONneering approach will help guide you through the process each step of the way.

15 - WELCOME CHALLENGES

Now in its 11th year, this out-of-this-world meeting-of-the-minds embraces cooperative inter-disciplinary problem-solving to produce innovative solutions to tackle our toughest space and Earth challenges. Some of these challenges require technical skills, such as coding, math, or data science. However, many others instead alternatively demand artistic, business, communications, or humanities acumen. For two straight non-stop days, we expect over 31,500 participants in over 323 cities within over 185 countries to simultaneously convene for globally intensive innovation ideation and creation. Click anywhere on the Challenge Panels below for Interactive Challenger Chooser.

14 - WELCOME LOCAL COLLABORATORS

The event is completely 100% free to all participants. None of this would be possible without the tirelessly amazing and generous support of our wonderful Local Collaborators. Their partnership, underwriting, sponsorship, and guidance make it all happen. We are all extremely grateful for their support. Please join me in thanking them all:

13 - WELCOME IMPACT

You and your team’s solutions will have a significant impact on our world, both on Earth and in space. The NASA International Space Apps Challenge has already had a tremendous impact over its previous 10 years. With you and your team on board, the sky is the limit. By the numbers, previous record-breaking metrics for the amazing success of the NASA International Space Apps Challenge include:

12 - WELCOME ECOSYSTEM

As a Space Explorer Participant in the NASA Space Apps Challenge, you are a vital, integral, and foundational part of the global Space Ecosystem. This "Whole-of-Society" effort to explore space relies on YOU.

11 - WELCOME TEAMS

Way way beyond just STEMer, absolutely everyone is welcome, from developers and engineers to artists and storytellers. In fact, similar to a real live functional start-up, you should assemble a full suite of diverse functions to support your core solution creators. These would include facilitation, infrastructure, and scaling team members with interest or expertise in, for example:

Sales
Cloud
Finance
Business
Marketing
Accounting
Cybersecurity
Public Relations
Communications
Government Relations

You form your own diverse teams, before or during the event, to develop your space-related solutions to our most pressing problems in the universe today. You will participate entirely free, thanks to the generous and kind support of our local, national, and international Partners, including Sponsors, Underwriters, Supporters, and Collaborators, who cover all costs.

10 - WELCOME DISCIPLINES

Participants from a full range of diverse disciplines, interests, experiences, occupations, backgrounds, and fields of study are welcome including, for example:

Artists
Coders
Makers
Builders
Thinkers
Bloggers
Creatives
Scientists
Engineers
Designers
Journalists
Innovators
Developers
Storytellers
Technologists
Entrepreneurs
Videographers
Problem Solvers
Content Creators
Space Enthusiasts

9 - WELCOME ORGANIZATIONS

We enthusiastically welcome and invite diverse participants from the full range of diverse organization types including, for example:

Colleges
Universities
High Schools
Home Schools
State Colleges
Graduate Schools
Community Colleges
Young Professional Clubs
Technical Training Programs
Early Career Organizations
Professional Associations
Scientific Societies
Small Businesses
Accelerators
Corporations
Incubators
Startups

8 - WELCOME REAL ASTRONAUTS

You and your teammates will meet and learn from real NASA Astronauts. These brave women and men will share their own talents, and stories, about their heroic space accomplishments.

7 - WELCOME HIDDEN HEROES

Additionally, you will also hear from representatives within the armies of what we call 'hidden heroes.' These are huge numbers of dedicated women and men who toil tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure the safety, security, and success of every single NASA astronaut and every single NASA mission. Those ordinary people performing extraordinary jobs include:

Welders
Scientists
Engineers
Machinists
Electricians
Technicians
Nutritionists
Administrators
Environmentalists
...and, yes, even Seamstresses

6 - WELCOME KENNEDY SPACE CENTER

Ours will be a hybrid event. Participants are warmly welcome to experience the NASA International Space Apps Challenge from the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Alternatively, we equally invite participants from throughout the surrounding region and state to connect for all of the event remotely.

On-site participants will be hosted at the historic Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. From that home base during your breakneck problem-solving sprint, you will not just view the Kennedy Space Center exhibits...you will live them. Fully immersed within this one-of-a-kind multi-media mecca, your team will interact with the Kennedy Space Center displays as this Living Lab helps to continuously advise, inform, and shape your solution.

Entire teams can be either on-site or remote. Plus, teams may have a mix of in-person and virtually-connected team members, as well.

5 - WELCOME AGENCIES

Interact intensively with counterparts, colleagues, and new friends around the corner, around the county, around the country, and even around the globe through the many participating international Space Agency partners:

4 - WELCOME AWARDS

Your team will compete for any of at least ten prestigious local awards from among all Kennedy Space Center teams. The best of the best will then be eligible to be nominated and judged for global awards. The diverse award categories include:

3 - WELCOME OPEN SCIENCE

In collaboration with NASA Transform to Open Science (TOPS), the 2023 NASA International Space Apps Challenge theme is “Explore Open Science Together.” This theme acknowledges 2023 as A Year of Open Science - as declared by NASA, the White House, and other Federal Agencies.

By participating in this year’s NASA Space Apps Challenge you may choose to work with people you know or you don’t know to create solutions using NASA and its Space Agency Partners' open data. Open Science practices will teach you how to work together, do science in a way that is inviting for others to join, and share your science with the world. No matter your circumstances or level of experience, the NASA Space Apps Challenge is your opportunity to build your network, learn skills, gain knowledge, and discover how collaboration inspires innovation.

Open science is the principle and practice of making scientific research available to all while respecting diverse cultures, maintaining security and privacy, and fostering collaborations, reproducibility, and equity. Traditionally, scientists learn how to work together and how to “do” science from their peers and mentors in formal environments like academia and industry. Open science practices ensure that everyone has the resources to participate and contribute to science.

To help teach scientists, researchers, and citizen scientists how to foster an open science environment, NASA TOPS is creating Open Science 101, expected to launch in late 2023. This in-person or online course shares ideas for how its participants can amplify their impact through the use of open science best practices such as building diverse, like-minded teams and methods for how to use, make, and share data, code, and results. Through five learning modules, Open Science 101 covers how to discover and access quality online resources, how to successfully communicate scientific findings, and how to format science in a way that others can incorporate into their research.

Ready to take your open science to the next level?

2 - WELCOME SPACE

Make Space! One of the primary goals of the event is to eliminate all barriers of access to space and science. We warmly welcome anyone and everyone to create, explore, learn, and build together…regardless of background and experience. Each year, we continue to support and empower ideas through our 'north star' principles of Inspiration, Innovation, and Inclusion.

We are excited to share how Make Space may be defined. What does Make Space mean to you?

Making Space: Reminds us of the NASA Space Apps commitment that 'There’s always space for one more.' NASA Space Apps is committed to providing a professional and productive forum for all participants to engage in a robust exchange of ideas on the challenges. By making space, we create a place that invites more people, more creativity, and more opportunity. NASA Space Apps takes pride in continually working to ensure that, no matter who or where you are, there remains room for you to develop as a coder, scientist, artist, designer, storyteller, thinker, maker, builder, technologist, and beyond. We are excited to celebrate this commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility through this year’s theme. During the annual event, all are invited to join this space!

Make Space: NASA Space Apps Challenge participants gain access to the tools, networking, and skill development needed to create, or 'make,' solutions. All participants become 'makers.' A maker is someone who learns by doing…exactly what NASA Space Apps is all about. Thousands of makers connect each year through NASA Space Apps and use their shared interest in engaging with NASA’s open data resources to help solve real-world problems on Earth and in space. Prototypes, software applications, art projects, and communities represent just some examples of what competition results. We stand so proud that, through this process, NASA Space Apps has become one of the largest maker communities in the galaxy.

Make S.P.A.C.E.: Who says acronyms cannot be fun? To represent what Make Space means to us, these are some descriptors we believe celebrate this year's theme. What words would be in your acronym for S.P.A.C.E.?

S: Safe, Solve
P: Possibility, People
A: Access, Appreciation
C: Collaboration, Culture
E: Equity, Empowerment

1 - WELCOME INNOVATION

During the non-stop NASA International Space Apps Challenge weekend, you and your team will explore all 10 'I's of Space Innovation:

0 - WELCOME COLLABORATION

Enjoy the thrill of unbridled space imagination by collaborating across borders, across continents, across communities, across sectors, across disciplines, and across cultures. Through your tenaciously trailblazing teamwork, you will not just be connecting-the-dots, you will instead, more importantly, be connecting-the-thoughts.

...Lift-Off...We have Innovation-Ignition!

United States

Cape Canaveral, FL