Thank you John for you visit and help in our event.

A little bit about him:

His speech tomorrow:

John Sprague, Deputy of the Tech & Innovation Division at NASA HQ and an End User Architect.  I’m a retired Air Force Officer before coming to NASA 6 years ago.  And I teach Masters courses in Cybersecurity at Webster University.

Truly an honor to be in Guatemala.  As I flew in Thursday Night I saw your city.   es una cuidad muy bella!

Space Apps Challenge inception in 2012, a part of NASA’s Open Innovation Program

Biggest global hackathon

2014 Space Apps more than 8,000 citizens of 46 countries, and 95 cities hosted local events. Products: mobile apps, games and hardware.

Themes:  Earth, Outer Space, Humans and Robotics.  This year I’m predicting we’ll hit 10,000 participants in the 136 locations around the world.

Purpose:  1.  leverage massive datasets and open source tech, 2.  unlock the power of government data to help innovation, 3.  provide NASA and others with new and innovative approaches to problem-solving, 4.  build a community that we can tap into, 5.  engage more women in data

Convert to Spanish, see translation at the bottom to see if it’s correct:

The International Space Apps Challenge is an unprecedented international collaboration between government agencies, organizations and academic institutions from around the world.

The event draws on the talents and initiative of people from around the world, who volunteer their time to respond to real-world problems.

Several organizations and universities, including the U.S. Department of the Interior, the European Space Agency, MIT and Columbia University have provided challenges that encourage people to use open data to make useful products. Some of these organizations are hosting events as part of Space Apps.

The success of Space Apps relies on local organizers around the world, like Ms Maria Zaghi, who leverage contributions from hundreds of organizations that contribute expertise, financial resources, and in-kind support at the community level.  We should all thank your local sponsors:  TEC, USAC, Tigo, Columbus, and Cerveceria Centro Americana.   We want to encourage the youth of the world to participate in events like this.