Friday 13 and Saturday 14 November, CNES, ESA and Aerospace Valley will kick-off the 4th edition of ActInSpace®, the top international competition devoted to space applications. Midway between a hackathon and a start-up weekend, ActInSpace® will be held concurrently in some 41 countries and 62 cities on all five continents. 

Open to entrants from all horizons, the competition aims to develop entrepreneurship and forge ties between space stakeholders and citizens by setting challenges for teams to solve based on patents, software, data or space infrastructures. Its main objective is to bring space technology, infrastructure, data etc. to launch start-ups which will fit into our daily life.

ActInSpace® was initiated by CNES in May 2014. After the first event held in France in 2014 and the second extended to Europe in 2016, this is the 2nd time ActInSpace® is going global. Looking to consolidate the space sector’s dynamic image and show how space technologies are serving applications in all areas of our daily lives, ActInSpace® 2020 will be present on all five continents. We are very pleased to announce that this year we are bringing the 2nd edition of ActInSpace to Azerbaijan! with Baku, the capital, being as a host city for the event.

ActInSpace Azerbaijan is organized by the French-Azerbaijani University (UFAZ) with the sponsorship of sponsored by Azercosmos OJSC, Innoland | Incubation & Acceleration Center, STEP IT Academy and Embassy of France in Azerbaijan.

Aimed at students but open to entrants from all fields and levels, ActInSpace® pits teams of two to five against each other, giving them just 24 hours to devise an innovative and realistic project for a start-up on the basis of challenges set by CNES, ESA, Airbus and other partners of the event. During 24 hours, 14 teams will be assisted over the weekend by engineering and business coaches on hand to help them present the best project possible to the judging panel. First two places will be awarded by AIS local sponsors. Besides, each city and country will select the most promising team for the international final in Toulouse, France.

Winning teams (first two places) will get 6 months free working space and mentoring from INNOLAND Incubation & Acceleration Center, and the first place will receive round-trip tickets and 2 days accommodation while their trip to ActInSpace 2020 Finals in Toulouse, France! Contestants will also be competing over internal prizes from STEP IT Academy.

Azercosmos is the only satellite operator in Caucasus established on May 3rd 2010 and fully owned by the government of Azerbaijan Republic. Having launched the Azerspace-1, the first-ever satellite of Azerbaijan, on February 8th 2013, the company provides highly reliable, satellite-based communication services to enterprise and government customers for DTH, voice, video, data and mobility applications.

INNOLAND is an incubation, acceleration and research center created to develop the private sector, promote innovation and expand the startup movement both in Azerbaijan and beyond its borders. “INNOLAND” consists of an incubator, an accelerator, a co-working space and an IT Training and Education Center. The IT Training and Education Center is a place where young people will be taught programming, information technologies and coding skills.

STEP IT Academy is the fastest growing international educational institution specializing in IT. Since 1999 institutions have been preparing programmers, designers and system engineers who cannot be replaced by artificial intelligence through understanding tasks, running projects and working in a team, in addition to core knowledge. Currently, the institution is operating in 98 branches in 21 countries.