The third annual Fishackathon challenge was launched on the 22nd April 2016 which is a competition that encouraged coders and scientific enthusiasts to address sustainable fishery challenges by creating applications (apps) for mobile phones and other devices. One of nine tasks set this year was to create an app to identify the species of fish caught on fishing vessels from onboard cameras. This builds on an app created last year, named ‘Fish-o-tron’ which allowed data to be quickly and efficiently collected which measured the length of fish caught from images collected by onboard cameras.
The challenge was organised by WWF, Young’s Seafood, Welsh ecological consultancy Salacia-Marine and the US-based Billfish Foundation. The challenge was developed in partnership with fishermen as part of the EU LIFE+ funded Celtic Seas Partnership which is a WWF-led project. $10,000 in winnings will be distributed to innovative ideas and the US government will invest in one project for further development. The results will be announced on the 8th June 2016 which is World Oceans Day.
Learn more about the Fishackathon here.
