Lord Mayor of Dublin awards winners of 2025 Dublin NASA Space Apps Challenge: two teams advance to global competition.
Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Ray McAdam, with winners, judges, mentors, and local collaborators at National College of Ireland, celebrating Dublin Mission Control's global nominees to NASA Space Apps Challenge 2025.
Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Ray McAdam, was welcomed to National College of Ireland on 20th November, to award the winning teams from Dublin Mission Control, whose projects now go forward to compete globally at this year’s NASA Space Apps Challenge, and to congratulate the Community Choice winners, voted by their peers.
“I am hugely impressed by the projects achieved in just two days of hacking, and very proud that two teams are being sent forward from Dublin to compete at a global level. Following this year’s theme of Learn, Launch Lead, I can see that participants have learned, they have launched, and I have no doubt that we will see them lead in the future,” said Cllr Ray McAdam, Lord Mayor of Dublin.
Receiving presentations from the Lord Mayor were:
From Team Outer Wilds Ventures, receiving a global nomination, Pedro Simão, Gabriel Moraes, Michel Koga, Olena Khadzhi and Rikita Mahajan, a group of professionals and masters’ students linked by their passion for gaming.
From Team KARLverse, receiving a global nomination, Krishnay Nair, Rimaansh Bhargava, Vanshika Wadhwa, Amisha Sanjay Kadukar and Lakshan Nagaraja Gowda, a group with very diverse skillsets who are currently undertaking masters' programmes in DUblin.
From Team DeepEnd for the Community Choice Award: Archer Davis, Meryem Atasever and Runé Swart, TY Students from Cross and Passion College in Kilcullen, Co Kildare, encouraged to participate by their TY Coordinator, Glenda Groome, and facilitated to do so through mentoring from NCI's Aditya Pandey and Georgii Korenkov, and Give(a)Go's Lorena Seabra.
The 2025 Challenge: Learn, Launch, Lead
This year, Dublin Mission Control reached the ‘full-house’ limit well in advance of the hackathon dates of October 4th and 5th, 2025. Registered participants came from a wide range of backgrounds, notably including a group of under-18s who were supported in developing their projects by educators from NCI’s Early Learning Initiative and dedicated STEM mentors from NCI's School of Computing.
“Across NCI programmes, we strive to give our students access to real world data and opportunities to address real world issues. Acting as home base for the NASA Space Apps Challenge allows us to extend such opportunities beyond our own student body. That NASA Space Apps Challenge is open to all ages aligns with our philosophy of lifelong learning, encouraging younger people to engage with all that higher education can offer, and inspiring everyone to never stop learning,” said Professor Gina Quin, President of National College of Ireland.
Global nominees
Global nominees received trophies sponsored by InnaLabs. The teams also received goodie bags containing a treasure trove of badges, merch and vouchers from the European Space Agency (ESA) and Code Week Europe.
The first Global Nominee is Team Outer Wilds Ventures. Their platform titled “Embiggen Your Eyes! / Zoomers” was designed to visualise massive astronomical datasets.
Every day, NASA missions capture high-resolution images of planets, moons, and galaxies, but much of this data remains scattered across different platforms and is difficult for the public to explore, so images remain unseen and unused. Team Outer Wild Ventures developed a web platform that transforms these massive imagery datasets into simple maps. Using a tile-based system, it loads gigabyte-scale images in real time, allowing users to seamlessly zoom in, compare datasets side-by-side, and mark anomalies or interesting features directly on the map.
Team KARLVerse followed closely as the second Global Nominee with their AI-powered space habitat design platform titled “HabitatForge.”
HabitatForge is an AI-powered space habitat design platform that revolutionizes how engineers and mission planners create safe, efficient space habitats for Mars, Moon, and Gateway missions. By integrating NASA's rigorous safety standards (NASA-STD-3001, 3000, 8709.22, 5005) with cutting-edge artificial intelligence, the platform automatically generates compliant habitat layouts while providing real-time constraint validation and 3D visualization.
These two teams will now advance to the Global Judging phase of the NASA Space Apps Challenge. Global Winners will be announced on December 18th.
Dr Athanasios Staikopoulos acted as Academic Adviser on behalf of the School of Computing for the challenges. At the award event, he gave an overview of each project, and some of the judges' feedback, allowing the panel of guests, including the Lord Mayor, to understand what it takes to make it as a Community Choice or Global Nominee. Dr Staikopoulos has provided this information as a blog post, to give potential future participants an idea of what can be achieved in a two-day hackathon and what it takes to launch to the global competition.
Curious to learn more? Dr Athanasios Staikopoulos outlines this year's winning projects in NCI's latest blog post.
“It’s always inspiring to see the creativity and ambition of our students and participants at NASA Space Apps Dublin. This year’s projects showed exceptional innovation and teamwork, with ideas that reach far beyond the weekend itself. Congratulations to our global nominees and the Community Choice Award winners, they’ve done NCI proud and continue to demonstrate how curiosity and collaboration can drive real-world impact,” said Professor Paul Stynes, Dean of NCI’s School of Computing.
Community Choice winners
Team DeepEnd received this year’s Community Choice Award, with Space Week Frisbees and Moon Calendars to keep them watching the skies in 2026. This project also earned Team DeepEnd an ESA Rising Stars prize for the best under-18 participants
These TY students from Cross and Passion College in Kilcullen, Co. Kildare were encouraged to participate by their TY coordinator, Glenda Groome. The team's three mentors were NCI's Aditya Pandey and Georgii Korenkov, and Give(a)Go's Lorena Seabra. Though amongst the youngest of competitors, they won the hearts and minds of their fellow participants and received the ‘popular vote.’
Archer Davis, Meryem Atasever and Runé Swart used React.js, Veo AI, and NASA Open Data to build “Astro Defenders,” an educational game designed to make real NASA asteroid data fun and accessible for children aged eight to twelve. Players encounter live meteors from NASA’s API, collect them into a personalised “Spacepedia,” and explore fun facts about asteroids while earning points and power-ups, blending science, creativity, and education to inspire curiosity about space exploration.
Connection, curiosity and outreach
Paola Vercesi, NASA Space Apps Dublin Local Lead, closed proceedings:
"It was a joy to celebrate the 2025 NASA Space Apps Dublin Global Nominee teams today with Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Ray McAdam. The advancing projects, along with this year's Community Choice Award winner, stood out for ingenuity, clarity, and collaborative spirit. My thanks, for making Dublin Space Apps possible, go to the NCI Mission Control team, our Lift Off Partner InnaLabs, ESA (European Space Agency), and all our Local Collaborators, whose support fuelled this edition. I am deeply grateful to our volunteer Mentors and to the prestigious Judging Panel for their time and insights. Space Apps Dublin has once again confirmed itself as a moment of connection, curiosity, and outreach, where space becomes tangible thanks to the passion of our Challengers, the dedication of our organising team, and the inspiring voices from industry and academia who joined us this year."
Local collaborators
Dublin NASA Space Apps Challenge partners for 2025 included Lift-Off partner, InnaLabs Ltd., a key player in Ireland’s fast-growing space sector, amongst a stellar line-up of Local Collaborators:
These organisations provide mentoring, outreach, and specialist support in space technologies, Earth observation, data science, education, and design.
Eminent judges
The judging panel for Dublin Mission Control 2025 comprised:
Dr. Nicholas J.B. Brereton, Assistant Professor and Ad Astra Fellow, School of Biology and Environmental Science, University College Dublin, active member of NASA GeneLab and lead of ESA MARCROP and RadioBiome missions
Dr. Adriana E. Chis, Assistant Professor, Programme Director of the MSc in Cloud Computing, School of Computing, and academic lead of the Code4Europe Project at NCI
Rebecca Graham, Managing Editor at Silicon Republic, Ireland’s leading voice in science, technology, and innovation
Dr. Lorraine Hanlon, Astrophysicist, Full Professor of Astronomy at University College Dublin, and academic lead of the EIRSAT-1 CubeSat mission
Dr. Alberto Torasso, Vice President of Space Programs at InnaLabs Ltd.
Rob O'Loughlin, Head of Earth Observation Technologies in Compass Informatics.
Dr. Lisa McNamee, medical doctor, space medicine researcher and honorary research fellow at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
More about NASA Space Apps Challenge
NASA Space Apps Challenge is the largest annual global hackathon that invites participants to solve challenges using open data from NASA and other national and regional Space Agency partners. Since 2012, it has engaged over 373,000 participants. In 2024, 93,520 registered participants submitted 9,996 projects across 485 local hubs. The 2025 NASA Space Apps Challenge Dublin promotes STEM education, innovation, and science and technology awareness, while helping build a visible, inclusive space ecosystem in Ireland.
November 26th will see finalists and highly commended announced.
December 18th will be when the winning projects are announced.
Learn more about NASA Space Apps Challenge .
The Dublin NASA Space Apps Challenge team, and the team members at NCI, thank our judging panel for their time, insight, and expertise in evaluating this year’s participants’ submissions. Huge congratulations to everybody who took part in this year’s hackathon.
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