An app in 24 hours

The north.io hackathon team creates an app in 24 hours and wins the 5th DataRun of the Federal Ministry for Digitalisation and Transport (BMDV).

BSH President, Professor Helge Heegewaldt. Photo: BMDV

The team won in the "Most Unusual Approach" category with an application for greater security of critical infrastructure (KRITIS) at sea: Against the backdrop of the River Elbe, the five-person team at the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) was the only team to develop a functional app within 24 hours that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and remote sensing data from satellites to detect moving objects and suspicious ships in the vicinity of KRITIS at sea in a first step - even if applications such as the Automatic Identification System (AIS) have been switched off or even manipulated by them. In a second step, the app then enables underwater drones to be guided to the KRITIS in the vicinity of the suspicious object in order to automatically clarify the underwater situation - for example to detect or exclude mines.
BSH President Helge Heegewaldt, host of the BMDV Hackathon, was delighted that north.io's maritime application was honoured: "It was a great 24 hours at the BSH with lots of creative ideas from the hackers and very well-deserved award winners - congratulations! Especially to the north.io GmbH team for the award in the "unusual approach" category.

Group photo of the north.io - Hackathon team.
Photo: BMDV

The explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines have shown how vulnerable critical maritime infrastructure is. Experts now even assume that Russia has already mined parts of the western underwater infrastructure in order to be able to carry out possible acts of sabotage in the future. That is why it is now important to find solutions quickly and identify ways in which authorities and companies can use digitalisation to ensure the best possible protection for marine infrastructure in the future, says Jann Wendt, CEO of north.io.

The software developers have already found a suitable name for the app: "ARGUS", the "all-seer". Julian Pawlak from the German Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies (GIDS) in Hamburg supports the joint approach of north.io and BSH: "The aim must be to expand cooperation and monitoring with the help of armed forces and industrial partners, police forces and coastguards, but also supplemented by external actors and satellite images, so that threats to critical maritime infrastructure can be immediately sighted, located and subsequently identified".

A look over the shoulder during the creation of the ARGUS app. Photo: BMDV

Who is north.io?

north.io GmbH is an impact-driven company specialising in cloud technology that supports its customers in bringing about sustainable change with the help of software. The winner of the Digitalisation Award Schleswig-Holstein 2021 is based in Kiel and has been developing software-as-a-service solutions for over 10 years, including for public authorities, which make geodata easily accessible, quick to find, easy to share and clear to understand. The team of 70 highly specialised experts focuses on the development of cloud-native solutions that are specifically designed to make geodata accessible for the private and public sector.
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