The University College London’s Artificial Intelligence Society has invited students from 25 of the world’s best Universities to take part in a competition focused on using AI to make a tangible and measurable reduction in industrial carbon emissions.
Open Climate Fix, a climate-based non-profit organisation, has prepared around 100 gigabytes of data from the EUMETSAT system for the competition. The aim of the competition is to use Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to improve the accuracy of short-term solar photovoltaic nowcasting (predicting the amount of solar energy that will be produced in a given time period in real-time). With more accurate forecasting, electricity grid operators are able to reduce reliance on non-renewable energy sources. Open Climate Fix estimates that better solar photovoltaic forecasting could save up to 100 kilotonnes per year in the UK alone, and by 2030, reduce global carbon emissions by roughly 100 million tonnes.
This unique community is being organised by Jamie Weigold, President of the UCL Artificial Intelligence Society. In a press release announcing the launch of the Climate Hack.ai competition, Jamie Weigold said,
“Climate change is the single greatest threat to humanity today. How we, as a race, respond to it will define not only our generation but the survival and livelihood of all generations to come. Climate Hack.AI and the problem of increasing the quality of solar photovoltaic power production forecasts more generally, is one of many steps that will be required to tackle this threat. We are honoured to be hosting students from such a prestigious collection of universities whose student communities are participating in the competition, united together in the fight against climate change.
Jack Kelly (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Open Climate Fix) said,
“OpenClimate Fix is committed to addressing climate change in a completely open fashion in order to accelerate impact. Open Climate Fix uses our connection to industry to present real-world problems with researchers. Climate Hack.AI is a fantastic opportunity to get some smart, inventive people on this important challenge, and we can in turn help take these innovations to practical use.”
Here at BDS we assisted the Climate Hack organisers by helping them put together a sponsorship offering to support the competition. The competition is sponsored by Global Innovation Hub, Ennovate, and Newcross Healthcare.
Find out more on the Climate Hack website.
The 25 university societies that are co-hosting this year’s competition are:
- Caltech
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Columbia University
- Cornell University
- Georgia Tech
- Harvard University
- Imperial College London
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Princeton University
- Stanford University
- University College London
- University of Bristol
- University of California, Berkeley
- University of California, Los Angeles
- University of Cambridge
- University of Edinburgh
- University of Glasgow
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaig
- University of Manchester
- University of Michigan
- University of Oxford
- University of St. Andrews
- University of Toronto
- University of Warwick
- University of Waterloon
