LAUNCH OF THE 3RD EDITION OF THE ReSAKSS DATA CHALLENGE
On Thursday February 2020 the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS) launched the 3rd edition of the ReSAKSS Data Challenge. The Challenge is a competition for enthusiastic data users to showcase their creativity and analytical skills using data and other resources on the ReSAKSS website to develop an innovative knowledge product or project that addresses a development challenge faced by Africa.
The ReSAKSS Data Challenge aims to provide reliable data and numerous knowledge products on the ReSAKSS platform and encourage their use by actors in academia, business, policy, media, arts and the civil society at large.
More specifically, the ReSAKSS Data Challenge seeks to:
- Introduce the ReSAKSS platform and its associated tools to African audiences: students, researchers, analysts, media specialists, artists, entrepreneurs, and anyone interested in social and economic development and related data and knowledge products.
- Raise awareness about the available reliable data provided by the ReSAKSS website and by the highly disaggregated data available in the ReSAKSS Country eAtlases.
- Encourage participants in the challenge to fully explore the range of data and indicators on the ReSAKSS platforms.
- Stimulate innovative use of data on African economies to create knowledge, tools, and artistic products and services that will contribute to efforts to address matters of strategic importance to African society.
Target participants include but are not limited to researchers, analysts, students in all disciplines, artists, media specialists, coders, developers, high school teams, anyone in Africa and from the diaspora who is passionate about data and willing to create an innovative product or service relevant to social and economic development issues facing African countries.
The ReSAKSS DATA challenge is an opportunity for researchers and analysts to experiment, discover new tools, and create a community of practice that will work with data in the most innovative way. It will enable a diversity of innovators, whether from business, the media, or arts, to create content in line with their own vocation. It allows civil society organizations to develop content for advocacy. More generally, diverse communities with different backgrounds can come together and use data to generate knowledge and share their common interest in data.
The ReSAKSS Data Challenge offers four (4) categories of competition:
- Essay and Report
- Visual Art
- IT Product and Service
- High School Project
For each category winners can win from $1000 to $3000.
ABOUT THE FIRST EDITIONS OF THE RESAKSS DATA CHALLENGE
The awards ceremony of the ReSAKSS Data Challenge 2018 was held during the ReSAKSS Annual Conference, organized by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in partnership with the African Union Commission. The conference, on the theme “Boosting Growth to End Hunger by 2025: The Role of Social Protection”, took place at the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 24-26 October 2018. The inaugural ReSAKSS Data Challenge 2018 was chaired by H.E Mrs. Josefa L.C. Sacko, Commissioner of the Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture at the African Union Commission (AUC-DREA), Dr. Shenggen Fan, Director General of IFPRI, and Dr. Ousmane Badiane, Director for IFPRI Africa. The second edition awards ceremony was chaired by H.E André de Jesus Moda, Secretary of State for Forestry Resources at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Angola, during the Annual Conference of ReSAKSS in Lomé, Togo in November 2019.
Download the Challenge Newsletter Download the Challenge brochure
For more information, please visit the ReSAKSS Data Challenge website
