AirQo’s air quality sensing network has more than 120 low-cost devices deployed across Uganda, which regulalry sense and report on air quality using the PM2.5 measure.
In this challenge we explore using satellite radar data from Sentinel 5P to predict air quality in regions in Kampala. The use of satellite data could expand air quality predictions to areas without air quality sensor devices.
The objective of this challenge is to predict air quality readings from AirQo’s sensors using Sentinel 5P data.
Participants in this challenge are encouraged to use Layer.ai to track their experiments. Code submissions need to be supported by a Layer repo and report. You can learn more about using Layer for machine learning, and sign up for Layer.ai here.
About Layer (layer.ai)
Layer helps you build, train and track all your machine learning project metadata including ML models and datasets with semantic versioning, extensive artifact logging and dynamic reporting with local↔cloud training
About AirQo (airqo.net)
AirQo is a research project of the Makerere University College of Computing and Information Sciences. We are committed to using technology to solve social problems across Africa with a current focus on Air Quality. With support from Google we have developed a network of low cost devices across Uganda and are using ML/AI to build forecasting, spatial and now calibration data. We share our insights on our platform, app and website with the aim of raising awareness of the causes and consequences of poor air quality and to provide data driven, actionable insights to reduce air pollution across Uganda and to other African cities.
Participants in this challenge are encouraged to use Layer.ai to track their experiments. Code submissions need to be supported by a Layer repo and report. You can learn more about using Layer for machine learning, and sign up for Layer.ai here.
The evaluation metric for this challenge is Mean Absolute Error.
Your submission file should look like:
ID pm2_5 ID_R5NC9JJMTW 60.5 ID_T5ASAWVP3C 58.1 ID_Q2M86L00CH 54.2
1st Place: $150 USD
2nd Place: $90 USD
3rd Place: $60 USD
This hackathon has 500 points available.
Competition closes on 3 July 2022.
Final submissions must be received by 11:59 PM GMT.
We reserve the right to update the contest timeline if necessary.
Teams and collaboration
You may participate in competitions as an individual or in a team of up to four people. When creating a team, the team must have a total submission count less than or equal to the maximum allowable submissions as of the formation date. A team will be allowed the maximum number of submissions for the competition, minus the total number of submissions among team members at team formation. Prizes are transferred only to the individual players or to the team leader.
Multiple accounts per user are not permitted, and neither is collaboration or membership across multiple teams. Individuals and their submissions originating from multiple accounts will be immediately disqualified from the platform.
Code must not be shared privately outside of a team. Any code that is shared, must be made available to all competition participants through the platform. (i.e. on the discussion boards).
The Zindi data scientist who sets up a team is the default Team Leader but they can transfer leadership to another data scientist on the team. The Team Leader can invite other data scientists to their team. Invited data scientists can accept or reject invitations. Until a second data scientist accepts an invitation to join a team, the data scientist who initiated a team remains an individual on the leaderboard. No additional members may be added to teams within the final 5 days of the competition or last hour of a hackathon.
The team leader can initiate a merge with another team. Only the team leader of the second team can accept the invite. The default team leader is the leader from the team who initiated the invite. Teams can only merge if the total number of members is less than or equal to the maximum team size of the competition.
A team can be disbanded if it has not yet made a submission. Once a submission is made individual members cannot leave the team.
All members in the team receive points associated with their ranking in the competition and there is no split or division of the points between team members.
Datasets and packages
The solution must use publicly-available, open-source packages only. You may use only the datasets provided for this competition. Automated machine learning tools such as automl are not permitted.
You may use pretrained models as long as they are openly available to everyone.
The data used in this competition is the sole property of Zindi and the competition host. You may not transmit, duplicate, publish, redistribute or otherwise provide or make available any competition data to any party not participating in the Competition (this includes uploading the data to any public site such as Kaggle or GitHub). You may upload, store and work with the data on any cloud platform such as Google Colab, AWS or similar, as long as 1) the data remains private and 2) doing so does not contravene Zindi’s rules of use.
You must notify Zindi immediately upon learning of any unauthorised transmission of or unauthorised access to the competition data, and work with Zindi to rectify any unauthorised transmission or access.
Your solution must not infringe the rights of any third party and you must be legally entitled to assign ownership of all rights of copyright in and to the winning solution code to Zindi.
Submissions and winning
You may make a maximum of 50 submissions per day.
You may make a maximum of 150 submissions for this competition.
Before the end of the competition you need to choose 2 submissions to be judged on for the private leaderboard. If you do not make a selection your 2 best public leaderboard submissions will be used to score on the private leaderboard.
During the competition, your best public score will be displayed regardless of the submissions you have selected. When the competition closes your best private score out of the 2 selected submissions will be displayed.
Zindi maintains a public leaderboard and a private leaderboard for each competition. The Public Leaderboard includes approximately 20% of the test dataset. While the competition is open, the Public Leaderboard will rank the submitted solutions by the accuracy score they achieve. Upon close of the competition, the Private Leaderboard, which covers the other 80% of the test dataset, will be made public and will constitute the final ranking for the competition.
Note that to count, your submission must first pass processing. If your submission fails during the processing step, it will not be counted and not receive a score; nor will it count against your daily submission limit. If you encounter problems with your submission file, your best course of action is to ask for advice on the Competition’s discussion forum.
If you are in the top 5 at the time the leaderboard closes, we will email you to request your code. On receipt of email, you will have 2 hours to respond and submit your code following the submission guidelines detailed below. Failure to respond will result in disqualification.
If your solution places 1st, 2nd, or 3rd on the final leaderboard, you will be required to submit your winning solution code to us for verification, and you thereby agree to assign all worldwide rights of copyright in and to such winning solution to Zindi.
If two solutions earn identical scores on the leaderboard, the tiebreaker will be the date and time in which the submission was made (the earlier solution will win).
If the error metric requires probabilities to be submitted, do not set thresholds (or round your probabilities) to improve your place on the leaderboard. In order to ensure that the client receives the best solution Zindi will need the raw probabilities. This will allow the clients to set thresholds to their own needs.
The winners will be paid via bank transfer, PayPal, or other international money transfer platform. International transfer fees will be deducted from the total prize amount, unless the prize money is under $500, in which case the international transfer fees will be covered by Zindi. In all cases, the winners are responsible for any other fees applied by their own bank or other institution for receiving the prize money. All taxes imposed on prizes are the sole responsibility of the winners. The top 3 winners or team leaders will be required to present Zindi with proof of identification, proof of residence and a letter from your bank confirming your banking details.Winners will be paid in USD or the currency of the competition. If your account cannot receive US Dollars or the currency of the competition then your bank will need to provide proof of this and Zindi will try to accommodate this.
Payment will be made after code review and an introductory call with the host.
You acknowledge and agree that Zindi may, without any obligation to do so, remove or disqualify an individual, team, or account if Zindi believes that such individual, team, or account is in violation of these rules. Entry into this competition constitutes your acceptance of these official competition rules.
Zindi is committed to providing solutions of value to our clients and partners. To this end, we reserve the right to disqualify your submission on the grounds of usability or value. This includes but is not limited to the use of data leaks or any other practices that we deem to compromise the inherent value of your solution.
Zindi also reserves the right to disqualify you and/or your submissions from any competition if we believe that you violated the rules or violated the spirit of the competition or the platform in any other way. The disqualifications are irrespective of your position on the leaderboard and completely at the discretion of Zindi.
Please refer to the FAQs and Terms of Use for additional rules that may apply to this competition. We reserve the right to update these rules at any time.
Reproducibility of submitted code
Data standards:
Consequences of breaking any rules of the competition or submission guidelines:
Monitoring of submissions