As part of the upcoming the Open Seventeen (O17, http://openseventeen.org/) challenge, WMO HydroHub (the Global Hydrometry Support Facility of the World Meteorological Organization) is looking for the Hydrology Community to define challenges around the topic of “Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Operational Hydrology” to which students and early career scientists can submit solutions.

O17 is a challenge-based, online interactive coaching programme to help young global innovators connect and shape good ideas into viable social innovations projects for achieving the 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development at local, regional or global level.  O17 supports projects that enable grassroots public participation and citizen science through the use of open data and crowdsourcing.

There are two open calls per year in which 6-8 challenges are formulated by experts from UN agencies, International Organizations and NGOs, targeting one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Students and young scientists from all over the world are then asked to submit project proposals to solve these challenges. Selected candidates receive six weeks of mentoring to implement their projects under the guidance of the expert who defined the challenge. The most promising projects are further supported for their development, including internships and scholarships. The theme of the previous challenge was “Tackling plastic pollution”. The next theme is “Artificial Intelligence for the SDGs” and the WMO HydroHub has been given the chance to formulate challenges.

The proposed challenges should answer the question: “Is there one particular challenge in operational hydrology that you think should be studied or resolved by means of AI?”

If you are interested to mentor a group of AI innovators that work on your topic, propose a challenge from your work context or expertise. The deadline for submitting a proposal is 6 January 2020. The best project teams will be invited to present their results at the AI for Good Global Summit, 4-8 May 2020 in Geneva, Switzerland.

For more information and to submit a proposal visit: https://hydrohub.wmo.int/en/news-events/call-challenges-ai-operational-hydrology