🏆 AS26 Finals Day

The Finale

AI-Powered Earth Observation Showcase. Ten days of learning, building, and creating something extraordinary.

📅 Friday, June 19, 2026
📍 ISU, Strasbourg
⏱ 10:00 - 16:00
🎓 Final Presentations
Celebration

What You've Accomplished

From zero to an AI-powered Earth Observation application in just 10 days. Take a moment to appreciate how far you have come.

🌟 You entered this course with curiosity. You leave with a working application that combines satellite imagery, artificial intelligence, and interactive web mapping. That is not a small thing.

Along the way, you have learned to:

  • Build interactive web maps with Leaflet.js and real satellite data
  • Integrate AI models (computer vision, NLP, classification) into web applications
  • Connect to real Earth Observation APIs (Sentinel Hub, Google Earth Engine, Copernicus)
  • Design and deploy a full-stack application from scratch
  • Present technical work to a professional audience
  • Work under pressure, iterate fast, and ship a product
Your Journey

10 Days, One Mission

The path from orientation to final showcase:

Day 1-2
🧭
Orientation & AI Fundamentals
Day 3-4
🗺️
Maps, Data & Satellite APIs
Day 5
🏭
Factory 2026 Innovation Day
Day 6-8
🔨
Build Sprint & Integration
Day 9-10
🚀
Polish, Present & Celebrate
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
Alan Kay, 1971
Presentation Format

Today's Schedule

10:00 - 12:00
Morning Session: Presentations (Group A)
Teams/individuals present their projects. Each slot is 10 minutes of presentation followed by 5 minutes of Q&A from the evaluation panel.
12:00 - 14:00
Lunch Break & Networking
Connect with fellow students, faculty, and external evaluators. Informal project demos welcome.
14:00 - 16:00
Afternoon Session: Presentations (Group B) & Awards
Remaining presentations followed by evaluation results and the closing celebration.
📋 Presentation order: Will be announced at the start of each session. Please be ready 5 minutes before your slot.
Presentation Format

Your Time Slot

Each team or individual gets:

  • 10 minutes for your presentation and live demo
  • 5 minutes for Q&A from the evaluation panel
  • 2 minutes transition time between presentations

Evaluation panel includes:

  • AS26 course faculty
  • External industry evaluators
  • ISU faculty members
✅ Suggested structure:
1. Problem statement (1 min)
2. Live demo (4 min)
3. Technical approach (3 min)
4. Impact & future vision (2 min)
⏰ Time limits are strict. Practice your timing beforehand. A 1-minute warning will be given.
Evaluation

How You'll Be Evaluated

Your project will be assessed across five dimensions:1

25%
Innovation
Is the idea original and creative? Does it bring a fresh perspective to Earth Observation?
25%
Technical Execution
Does the app work? Is the AI integration effective and meaningful?
20%
Presentation Quality
Clear storytelling, compelling live demo, and polished visual design.
20%
Impact Potential
Does this address a real problem? Could it scale to make a difference?
10%
User Experience
Is the app intuitive, well-designed, and pleasant to use?
💡 Remember: the evaluators care about your thinking process as much as your final product. Show them why your solution matters, not just how it works.
Presentation Tips

Start Strong, End Stronger

🎯
Start Strong
Your opening sentence sets the tone. Start with the problem, a striking fact, or a bold statement. Skip "Hi, my name is..." and get right to the point.
🖥️
Demo First, Explain Later
Show, then tell. Let your app speak first. A working demo is worth a thousand slides. Walk through a real user scenario.
🔮
End With Your Vision
Where does this project go next? Paint the picture of v2.0. Evaluators love ambition paired with realistic execution.
🎉
Have Fun!
This is a celebration of your work, not a trial. Be proud. Be enthusiastic. Your energy is contagious.
Presentation Tips

If Your Demo Crashes

Live demos are unpredictable. That is okay. Even professional engineers have demos fail on stage. What matters is how you handle it.

🛡️ The Golden Rule: Always have a backup plan. Screenshots, a recorded video of your app working, or a fallback slide deck with key visuals.
😌
Stay Calm
Take a breath. Smile. Say "Let me switch to my backup demo." The audience has been there. Nobody will judge you for a technical hiccup.
📸
Use Screenshots
Have screenshots ready showing key features working. Walk through them as if they were a live demo. Explain what the user would see at each step.
🗣️
Explain the Intent
Tell the evaluators what the app is supposed to do. They can assess your technical thinking even without a working demo. Architecture matters.
Presentation Tips

Handling Q&A Like a Pro

The Q&A is not a trap. It is a conversation. Evaluators ask questions because they are interested, not because they want to catch you off guard.

  • Take a breath before answering. A 2-second pause shows confidence, not hesitation.
  • It is perfectly fine to say: "I don't know the answer to that, but I would investigate by..." That shows intellectual honesty and curiosity.
  • Bridge to your strengths. If you get a hard question, acknowledge it and pivot: "That is a great point. What we focused on was..."
  • Keep answers concise. 30 seconds per answer is ideal. If they want more, they will ask.
  • Thank the questioner. A simple "Great question, thank you" goes a long way.
🧠 Quick Check: What is the best opening move in a Q&A?
Project Showcase

Your Projects Are Live 🚀

All projects are published on the AS26 Showcase. Investors, partners, and the entire ISU community can browse your work anytime.

🌐 Project Showcase: sounny.github.io/spaceapps/as/projects/
Share this link with your network. This is your portfolio piece.

What this means for you:

  • Portfolio value: Link this project on your LinkedIn, CV, and personal website
  • Visibility: ISU faculty, industry partners, and future employers can see your work
  • Continued development: You can keep iterating on your project after the course ends
  • Open source: Your code is on GitHub. Contributors from anywhere can build on your ideas.
🧠 Quick Check: What makes an EO project impactful beyond the classroom?
Project Showcase

The TERRA Connection

Your projects connect to something larger. The TERRA EU project and ISU SpaceApps community offer pathways for continued collaboration and real-world impact.

Opportunities for continued collaboration:

  • Selected projects may be featured in TERRA publications and showcases
  • Connect with EU-funded research initiatives in Earth Observation
  • Access to professional mentorship and industry networks
  • Potential for follow-on research or startup development
🤝 Paddock Academy Integration: Selected projects from AS26 will be featured at Paddock Academy events, connecting student innovation with industry partners in the Strasbourg tech ecosystem.
🌍 Your project lives on. The real learning happens after the course. Keep building. Keep iterating. Keep dreaming.
What's Next

Keep Building

Today is not the end. It is the beginning. The 10-day course gave you the foundation. Now it is up to you to take it further.

🔧
Continue Your Project
Add features, fix bugs, improve UX. Set a goal for where you want your app to be in 30 days.
🏆
Enter Competitions
NASA Space Apps Challenge (October), ESA hackathons, and Copernicus challenges are waiting for exactly what you have built.
🌐
Stay Connected
The ISU network is lifelong. Join SpaceApps alumni channels. Collaborate across continents.
📝
Publish Your Work
Write a blog post. Create a video demo. Submit to conferences. Your project deserves an audience.
What's Next

Resources to Keep Learning

Your learning toolkit for life after AS26:

🚀
NASA Space Apps
Annual global hackathon. Perfect for your EO project. October 2026.
🛰️
Copernicus Programme
Free satellite data, training materials, and hackathon opportunities.
🌍
Google Earth Engine
Cloud computing for planetary-scale geospatial analysis.
🤗
Hugging Face
Open-source AI models, datasets, and community. Where AI meets EO.
📚
fast.ai
Free deep learning courses. Practical, hands-on, project-based learning.
📊
EE Data Catalog
Petabytes of satellite imagery and geospatial datasets, free to explore.
Thank You

Thank You, Everyone 🙏

This course was made possible by incredible people and organizations.

🎓
ISU
International Space University. Our home, our community, our launchpad.
🏭
Factory 2026
Innovation Day partners who brought real-world challenges into the classroom.
🌍
TERRA EU Project
European research initiative connecting student work to real EO impact.
🐴
Paddock Academy
Bridging academia and industry in the Strasbourg innovation ecosystem.
💛 Most importantly: thank you, students. Your curiosity, hard work, late-night debugging sessions, and creative brilliance made this course extraordinary. You are the reason we teach.
Words to Remember

Voices of Exploration

"The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever."
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, letter, 1911
"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
John F. Kennedy, Rice University, 1962
"AI is probably the most important thing humanity has ever worked on. I think of it as something more profound than electricity or fire."
Sundar Pichai, Davos WEF, 2018
"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."
John Archibald Wheeler, Newsweek, 1979 (widely misattributed to Einstein)
"The only way to do great work is to love what you do."
Steve Jobs
"It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth."
Neil Armstrong
"Now go build something the world needs." 🚀
AS26 Faculty, ISU 2026

References
1 Steglich, C., Pinheiro, M., Majdenbaum, A., Motta, R., & Conte, T. (2020). Hackathons as a pedagogical strategy to engage students to learn and to adopt software engineering practices. Proceedings of the 34th Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering (SBES '20), 1-10. DOI: 10.1145/3422392.3422479
2 van Ginkel, S., Gulikers, J., Biemans, H., & Mulder, M. (2017). Fostering oral presentation performance: Does the quality of feedback differ when provided by the teacher, peers or peers guided by tutor? Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 42(6), 953-966. DOI: 10.1080/02602938.2016.1212984

🌟 Pioneer Profile
👤

Virginia Norwood

The Mother of Landsat

She designed the Multispectral Scanner for Landsat 1, revolutionizing how we map and monitor Earth from space.

🌍 Local to Global

The Valencia Flood Crisis

Applying EO to Community Challenges

Recent extreme flooding events highlight the critical need for rapid-response satellite imagery to coordinate rescue efforts and assess damage.

📍
Texas Connection: Similar to Valencia, Houston's Hurricane Harvey demonstrated the critical need for SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) which can see through clouds during major storm events.
🗺️
🤔 Geographic Inquiry

Regional Decisions Scenario

Scenario: Sustainable Workspace Siting

Your startup needs to establish a new hybrid work hub. You must balance employee commute times, environmental impact (using the IPAT equation), and existing green infrastructure.

Your Task:

  • Identify 3 potential sites using EO vegetation indices.
  • Calculate the estimated carbon footprint of hybrid commuting.
  • Propose a Placemaking strategy for the hub.
🛰️ Interactive EO

Explore the Data

Interact with the live map below to explore the Valencia region pre/post flood impact.

📚 Summary

Big Ideas & Glossary

Summary of Big Ideas

  • Data is only as valuable as its application.
  • Space technology has direct terrestrial benefits.

Glossary of Terms

Earth Observation
Gathering information about Earth via remote sensing.
📝 Knowledge Check

Auto-Graded Quiz

What specific type of satellite sensor is best for imaging areas during heavy cloud cover?
A
Optical (Multispectral)
B
Thermal Infrared
C
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)
✅ Correct! SAR uses microwave signals that penetrate clouds, making it essential during storms and floods.
❌ Incorrect. The right answer was C. SAR uses microwave signals that penetrate clouds, making it essential during storms and floods.

📝 Daily Reflection

What was your biggest takeaway from this session, and how does it apply to the TERRA project? Write your response below. Your instructor will review this to track your progress.

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