From Orbit to Action: AI for Earthquake Response

Earthquakes strike suddenly and unpredictably, often causing widespread destruction to infrastructure, buildings, and essential services – putting lives at risk in an instant. In the critical hours following such an event, speed is everything. Rapid damage assessments can guide emergency responders to the hardest-hit areas, help identify ongoing risks, and support life-saving decisions when time is of the essence.

🏙️The context

Earth Observation (EO) plays a vital role in crisis response by providing timely, accurate, and actionable insights. The International Charter ‘Space and Major Disasters‘ facilitates rapid access to satellite imagery following disasters, enabling responders to assess the full extent of damage from space. Through its global network of space agencies and satellite operators, the Charter delivers critical EO data within hours of an event to support rescue and recovery efforts.

Yet, despite access to high-resolution satellite imagery, damage mapping still relies heavily on human interpretation—a process that takes time, especially when every minute matters. Automating this process with artificial intelligence (AI) offers the potential to dramatically accelerate disaster response, generating actionable insights within minutes rather than hours.

But creating reliable AI for real-world disaster scenarios is no easy task. Models must be highly accurate, fast, and resilient to noisy, complex inputs. That’s where you come in.

Together, the ESA Φ-lab and the International Charter ‘Space and Major Disasters’ invite data scientists, AI researchers, students, geologists, and developers from around the world to join the AI for Earthquake Response Challenge – to build machine learning models capable of rapidly identifying post-earthquake building damage using EO data.

This is your chance to contribute to future innovation of humanitarian and disaster relief effort – using AI to help save lives when it matters most.

🛰️  The Mission

In the aftermath of a major earthquake, precision and speed are essential. Satellite imagery offers a unique vantage point to assess damage at scale – if paired with intelligent analysis.

This challenge tasks you with developing state-of-the-art AI models that can automatically detect damaged vs. undamaged buildings by analyzing high-resolution pre- and post-event satellite imagery.

The AI for Earthquake Response Challenge is a research-driven initiative that complements, but operates independently from, the Charter’s operational framework. Leveraging historical data from past activations, the Challenge aims to explore innovative approaches to rapid, automated impact assessment. High-performing solutions may inform the future evolution of the Charter’s operational processing chain, particularly within ESA’s cloud-based EO environment, the Charter Mapper.

💡The data

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. The ESA Φ-lab and the Charter will provide exclusive access to a curated archive of multi-mission, high-resolution satellite imagery collected from previous Charter activations. The dataset includes pre- and post-event imagery from satellites such as BlackSky Global, Gaofen-2, GeoEye-1, Kompsat-3 & 3A, Pléiades-1, WorldView-2, and WorldView-3.

All data is processed through the ESA Charter Mapper and will be made available via the Earth Observation Training Data Lab (EOTDL).

⚠️ Some datasets are subject to access restrictions and require us to grant you access manually.

🏆The reward(s)

This challenge is not only about advancing science – it’s about real-world impact. Winning models will gain visibility in open-science forums and may be considered for integration into the ESA Charter Mapper, potentially becoming key tools used in future disaster response missions.

• 🥇 1st Prize: €3,000

• 🥈 2nd Prize: €2,000

• 🥉 3rd Prize: €1,000

Each winning team is also eligible for up to €500 in travel reimbursement to attend the 54th Charter Meeting in Strasbourg (13–17 October 2025).

Your work will be visible to leaders in the global space, humanitarian and disaster response community – and might one day help save lives on the ground.

📋 At a glance

Still on the fence? Here’s what you’ll gain:

🚀 Make a tangible impact on real-world disaster response
🔬 Collaborate with top experts and institutions in space and AI
📡 Access exclusive EO datasets used in international operations
🌍 Showcase your work to space agencies and humanitarian stakeholders
💡 Push the boundaries of applied AI for good

So, just keep in mind the key dates:

• 🟡 Soft Launch: 20 June 2025

• 🔵 Hard Launch (Dataset Access): 4 July 2025

• 🕓 Submission Deadline: 3 October 2025

• 🏅 Winners Announced: 13–17 October 2025 (Charter Meeting in Strasbourg)

Whether you’re joining solo, forming a team, or looking for collaborators – everyone is welcome.
Start building, start coding, and help us shape the future of disaster response.

Join now at [PLATFORM LINK GOES HERE].

We would like to thank the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for the support in advertising this Challenge