Unlock a new perspective on your city

#MapYourCity Challenge

Your city holds a story waiting to be revealed

AI4EO takes on urban landscapes to use artificial intelligence (AI) and Earth observation (EO) to automate the detection of building age, the chronological age or period that has elapsed since a house or structure was constructed. Thorough understanding of a city’s different building ages is crucial for assessing its overall structural integrity and safety, identifying renovation requirements. Wear and tear, structural issues, or outdated systems may require rapid and tailored action to prevent potential hazards or structural integrity failures and call for comprehensive monitoring of building age.

Furthermore, building age acts as a time capsule, revealing the architectural trends, construction techniques, and design philosophies prevalent during the era of a building’s creation. From the detail-driven and ornament-rich buildings of the Victorian era to the minimalist styles of modernism, each building age carries its own unique story, characteristics, and requirements– from houses and apartment complexes to grocery stores and skyscrapers.

Help urban city planners, architects, homeowners and safety authorities by automating building age detection

With ever-growing cities, thorough and structured monitoring becomes increasingly challenging. Manual sampling and monitoring from a street view can be a tedious and time-consuming task, further hampered by regular new (de)construction projects that constantly shift a city’s layout or obstruct clear visibility on buildings. Due to their capability to offer an unobstructed and steady bird view, EO data and AI automation could prove as indispensable tools to keep a stable view on our cities and their many building ages by allowing for a constant and coordination-based mapping approach.

By collecting, analysing and comparing large sets of data, building age enables comprehensive long-term monitoring and comparison, e.g., to compare the average building age of different countries or their respective cities within, to keep track of renovation requirements, or to hint to potential structural safety issues. AI-powered satellite data holds the potential to accelerate data collection, reduce tedious manual sampling and keep an overview of evergrowing cities with steadily increasing numbers of infrastructure and buildings.

Use a comprehensive datasets and tools to develop your solution

Want to dive right in? Go ahead! We provide you with all the necessary data and tools so you can focus on developing your very own innovative and creative solution. We will equip you with all the necessary tools, including:

• High-quality data: Gain firsthand access to cloud-free and curated very-high resolution (VHR) satellite imagery.
• Merged perspectives: Blend building footprints and georeferenced street views.
• Off-the-shelf AI capabilities: We’ve got you covered with baseline AI models, a turnkey prototype, and deep-learning ready datasets, organised for training, testing, and validation.
• A community-driven ecosystem: Dive into our collaborative online repository, where datasets and models are up for exploration and improvement.

Submit your solution and win attractive cash prizes

The MapYourCity Challenge is open from 02 April 2024 to 14 July 2024.

Showcase how you use cutting edge technology at the verge of AI and EO to automate the past, present and future of urban city planning. Your innovation is rewarded: A cumulated 5000 Euros are waiting for the top three entries of the AI4EO MapYourCity challenge:

• 1^st prize: 2500 Euros
• 2^nd prize: 1500 Euros
• 3^rd prize: 1000 Euros

Additionally, the AI4EO challenge brings exposure and recognition to you and your team: Demonstrate your analytic and solution-orientated thinking, your creativeness, your team-player approach, and your technical wits to the brightest minds of the European and the global space ecosystem. Oh, and while you are at it: Find new friends and build upon a strong and growing community of AI and EO experts from science, university, and industry.

Intrigued? Just click here, learn more, and dive right in.