AiS guide for applicants

ActInSpace

25 and 26 May 2018

ActInSpace®

Guide for candidates

ActInSpace®: Challenges for students, apprentices, entrepreneurs
and/or space lovers.

ActInSpace was designed and launched by CNES, which is the design authority and organiser in
France. The ESA and its ESA Business Incubation Centres network support ActInSpace and ensure
its reach outside of France. ESA BIC Sud France, coordinated by the Aerospace Valley cluster, is the
event operator in charge of setting up this event, which is dedicated to students but open to
everyone. The Prague edition is organised by ESA BIC Prague and take place at Round Hall of Czech
University of Life Sciences Prague (Kamýcká 1069, 165 00 Suchdol).
The purpose of this contest is to promote the use of space technologies for citizens and our planet
by organising a major public event focusing on the challenges of space. More than 3,000
candidates are expected in more than 70 cities around the world.

Objectives
The objectives of ActInSpace are to:
 Develop an entrepreneurial spirit in young people.
 Demonstrate that space drives innovation in employment and economic development in a
sphere that reaches beyond its usual ecosystem.
 Create an attractive event that confirms the dynamic image of space.
 Participate in the adoption and reuse of space technologies and data.
 Identify future candidates, for the short or medium term, for regional incubators, the ESA BICs
and partners.

Key points
On Friday 25 May, candidates must form teams of up to five people – preferably with
complementary backgrounds. They will have 24 hours to resolve one of the challenges developed
by the organisers, which focus on the use of space-related technologies in everyday life.
In each city, the teams will present their work to the jury on Saturday 26 May starting at 15:30.
Deliverables may be in the form of a mock-up, a presentation, software, etc.
If several cities from the same country are participating, the winning regional teams will face off in
a national final. The winners of each country will be invited to the international final which will be
held in Toulouse on 27 June 2018, at the Toulouse Space Show 2018
https://www.toulousespaceshow.eu/tss18/.
There are significant prizes to be won at both the national and international finals (see
https://actinspace.org/).

The projects produced – whether they win or not – will subsequently be supported, if the
candidates wish, via the ESA BICs and the other partners of the event, with a view to allowing the
emergence of start-ups in the field of space applications.

Schedule for the weekend of 25/26 May

FRIDAY 25 MAY

13:00 - 13:30: Candidate welcome
13:30 - 14:00: Welcome messages from central organisers and information from regional

organisers
14:00 - 15:00: Selection of challenges / finalisation of teams

15:00: Challenges begin
16:30 - 18:00: Information on various subjects with space experts and coaches.

20:00: Evening meal
21:00: Work continues long into the night.

SATURDAY 26 MAY

09:00: Breakfast

10:00: How to Pitch workshop
10:30 - 12:00: Coaches work with each team to take stock of progress on the challenges

13:00: Lunch
14:00-15:00: Finalisation of presentations and practice for the pitch (with support of coaches)
15:30: Presentation of projects to a jury of professionals

16:30: Deliberation by the jury/juries

16:45: Prizes awarded on each site

17:00: Closing cocktail

The rules
You are reminded that registering for ActInSpace® means that you accept the rules presented on
the site https://actinspace.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/documents/about_document_actinspace-

contest-rules_YTJrHGLZ9t9LHAZec.pdf

Advice for candidates

You can form a team in advance, check the user interface guide on www.actinspace.org. The
teams will be created or finalised on Friday 25 May from 14:00 to 15:00. It is therefore possible to
start the initial work before Friday 25 May 2018.

Tips:
 Build multidisciplinary teams*.
 Familiarise yourself with the challenges before the weekend.
 Be as imaginative and creative as possible.
 Don’t hesitate to contact the experts referred to in the challenges, and the coaches, even
before the weekend.
 Don't forget to think about intellectual property and the value of the data, and talk with
our IP experts.
 Organise your time effectively. You must analyse the space sector technologies at the
start of the weekend and not spend too much time on it. We recommend that you not
continue beyond Friday 18:00. If questions remain after that time, you may consider that
the technologies correspond to what is announced in the text describing the challenges,
without going into the details of the technology.
 The purpose of the presentation to the jury is to simulate a meeting with investors or an
incubator selection committee. They must be won over by the project and want to support
it financially. The keyword is: sell your project!

* The jury will appreciate teams that are multidisciplinary and address as many aspects as possible
in their presentation.

Appendix 1: Persons supporting the candidates

On each of the event's sites, persons will be there to help the candidates choose their subjects
and achieve their projects. Various expert profiles will be available to the teams:

 The Space sector experts: they support the teams, in addition to the challenge
representatives, helping them to understand the space technologies. There should be one
at least in each city. An additional support tool on ChatSpert (see below) will allow
participants to talk with space sector experts via the site https://actinspace.org/.
 The Coaches: present on each of the sites, they provide their expertise in areas of
competence directly tied to the product and the market (business, IT, innovation,
creativity, etc.).

OPTIONS FOR COMMUNICATING WITH SPACE SECTOR EXPERTS DURING THE WEEKEND OF 25T/26 MAY

As soon as participants have a question about their challenge, they will turn firstly towards the
space experts present in their city. If none of them can provide an answer, they will turn to the
technical support on the site https://actinspace.org/ which we call ChatSpert. A detailed
description of this support function will available on www.actinspace.org.
Candidates must have their own laptop computer and must create an account to be able to
discuss with the experts. This support will be also accessible on cell phone thanks to the
ActInSpace App.
To be viewed by the correct experts, each question sent must be preceded by a choice of
tags/keywords. This information will allow the experts to select the challenges and/or
tags/keywords according to their field of expertise. It is important to make the questions as brief
as possible, as the experts will have many questions to answer. This support service will be
operational on Friday 25 May from 14:00 until the end of the hackathon.

Appendix 2: The challenges
Many challenges are proposed to give the candidates choices and the option of selecting several
challenges that meet their objectives and areas of interest. For the sake of clarity, the challenges
are identified by 2 labels, 3 categories, and tags.

LABELS
Labels allow candidates to know whether a challenge can easily lead to starting up a business, and
therefore to competing for the ActInSpace grand prize.

The ActInSpace In challenges: AIS-IN
Most of the challenges were designed to allow participants to develop their entrepreneurial spirit
through space technologies (patents, data, software, infrastructures, etc.) and start a business
project. Challenges identified by the #AISIn label are those that we believe fit this model.

The ActInSpace Off challenges: AIS-OFF
ActInSpace is open to challenges that will not necessarily lead to a start-up project, but more
probably an association or project with an environmental and/or societal impact, and that will
need to be developed over the medium/long term. These challenges are identified with the
#AISOff label.

Note:
One of the purposes of ActInSpace is to promote the creation of start-ups. To win the ActInSpace
grand prize, the projects proposed will therefore need to have real start-up potential. In our
experience, we believe this is more feasible with the AIS-IN challenges, but if an idea for starting
up a business were to emerge from an AIS-OFF challenge, it would be just as eligible for the grand
prize. Challenges with the #AISIn and #AISOff labels also give access to prizes other than the
ActInSpace grand prize.

THE CATEGORIES
Categories are used to indicate what we believe is the most likely end purpose of the
application/service you may launch. A challenge generally falls under a single category, but in
some cases it can cover several.
Everyday Life Business #EveryDayLifeBusiness:
Challenges in this category allow candidates to propose a start-up project based on space-related
technologies or data and involving applications/a service for everyday life (not space-related).
Be a new space actor #Space4.0:
Challenges in this category represent an opportunity to become a new space industry player by
applying innovations and technologies from other fields to the space sector.
Space for humanity #Humanitarian:
Challenges in this category propose to dedicate space-related technologies to humanitarian or
environmental causes. We have included the space exploration challenges in this category.
Note:
Participants are free to propose the usage of the space technologies/data proposed in the
challenges. The categories present the types of applications that we feel are the easiest to
achieve, but they are for information only.

THE TAGS
A tag is a keyword that allows grouping of challenges with shared characteristics, often tied to the
space sector or to non-space technologies. The tag cloud below characterises the challenges and
allows their selection:
#EarthObservation #Satellite #Navigation(GNSS) #Drone #Balloon #SpaceOperation #Optical
#Electronics #ImageProcessing #Materials #Robotic #BigData #ArtificialIntelligence
#InternetOfThings #Moon #Mars #ISS #Exploration #SpaceExperiment #Ecology #Health
#Science #Software #Data #Patent #EveryDayLifeB2C #EverydayLifeB2B
Note:
Each challenge is linked to several tags. Challenges can be sorted by tags on the international site:
https://actinspace.org/.

Appendix 3: ActInSpace grand prize and other prizes
By participating in ActInSpace, candidates can compete for many prizes, but during the weekend
of 25/26 May, most will be preparing a start-up project to attempt to win the ActInSpace grand
prize (Zero G flight). The information below will allow you to know what is expected.

PRESENTATION BEFORE THE JURY OF YOUR CITY

Each team has a total of 8 minutes to make their pitch to the jury. If a city has too many teams,
the local organisers may shorten this time to 6 minutes.
Each team will be asked to present their project in an attractive manner, emphasising the points
concerned by the assessment criteria. The presentation can be in the form of a film or slide show,
and mock-ups or applications can be used as well, depending on the challenge chosen and the
expected deliverables. A video projector will be available to the candidates. Each team will be able
to supplement the information presented with other elements: mock-up, prototype, oral
information, etc.
The pitches must highlight the innovative nature of the project, the development of space
technologies, the envisaged environment and economic model, the maturity of supply and
demand, and the expected benefits of the project (relevance of the project to major social issues,
etc.), in particular in terms of creation of services and jobs, management of intellectual property,
and the product/service in its usage environment.
The purpose of this pitch is to simulate a meeting with investors or an incubator selection
committee. They must be won over by the project and want to support it financially.
Lastly, the candidates must answer any questions from the jury at the end of the presentation.
The three top projects will be chosen for each city by the local organisers. The winner will
participate in the national final if there is more than one participating city in the country. If there is
just one city in the country, the winning team will represent its country at the international final.
The prizes are chosen by the city organisers.

Note: State the number of the challenge during the presentation.
Note: The presentation must be in the language of the country in which the city is located, unless
otherwise specified by the organiser.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA FOR ACTINSPACE GRAND PRIZE

The projects are assessed according to FIVE criteria:
 Use of space data or technologies (elimination criterion).
 Validity of economic model to generate revenue (maturity of supply and demand,
reliability analysis, etc.). This criterion can award up to 8 points. It counts double.
 Innovative and original nature of the project (product, service, or incremental innovation,
radical or architectural innovation, technological or organisational innovation, business
model or social innovation). This criterion can award up to 4 points.
 Expected benefits of the project (relevance of the project for major social issues, etc.), in
particular in terms of creation of services and jobs. This criterion can award up to 4 points.
 Jury’s favourite. This criterion can award up to 4 points.

For the business plan part of the presentation, we recommend using this model
http://www.businessmodelcompetition.com/business-model-canvas.html for which you will find a
tutorial here: http://youtu.be/QoAOzMTLP5s

THE FINALS

The international final
All finalist candidates are invited to Toulouse on Tuesday 26 June, where they will be provided
with free accommodation on 26 and 27 June. A cocktail reception will be held on the evening of
Tuesday 26 June for the French Finale. The competitions will be on Wednesday 27 June and the
presentations will be in English. The prizes will be awarded late afternoon. The candidates will be
invited to the Toulouse Space Gala Evening.
The ActInSpace® international grand prize offers the entire team a zero-gravity flight organised by
our partner Novespace.

The other prizes

OVERVIEW OF OTHER PRIZES
Many other prizes are awarded. Below is a brief presentation. See the detailed information on the
site https://actinspace.org/.

- The prize for the “space for humanity” category, awarded by MAIF, offers support for
creating a start-up (TBC).
- The “space exploration” prize will send a team to participate in the ESA challenge: Space
Exploration Masters (TBC).
- The prize for the “Be a New Space actor” category gives the right to a diploma and
promotional communication from CNES and ESA (TBC).
- The two prizes awarded by Airbus:
o The first, “Airbus Entrepreneurship Prize”, provides access to €100,000 worth of
satellite data and support for creating a start-up.
o The second, “Airbus Innovation Prize”, grants a team the right to fly an Airbus A320
on a flight simulator and to visit the satellite integration rooms and 3D space
laboratory.
- The prize for best GNSS usage will allow the winning team to attend the European Space
Solution Conference for three days in Marseille. The team will also be invited to and
assisted in the ESNC contest.
- The prize for the Woman Entrepreneurship Prize will allow the team to attend the EBAN
Winter Summit in Luxembourg 22-23 October 2018. The team will also be mentored by

EBAN Space partners
- The FabSpace prize is a free trip to Toulouse to attend the ActInSpace 2018 international
final on the 27th of June 2018, a mentoring program by experts in selected area and a
meeting with Airbus representative in Toulouse

HOW TO APPLY
On Monday 27 May, on the user interface accessible on the website https://actinspace.org/, any
team can apply for the special prizes offered by the event partners. All teams are eligible for the
special prizes, whether they are selected for the national and/or international finals or not.

Each partner has its own selection criteria. The partners will select the winning team for each
special prize. They will inform the winners directly. The team will not necessarily be invited to the
final by the partner. The prize will be handed over to the city organiser attending the final.


AiS guide for applicants

PDF file: AiS_ guide-for-applicants.pdf