Hey guys,
I've found myself in charge of a super exciting self-driven project and I'm debating if I could use some more help. Would be open to working with a group of students interested in international policy if someone could make a convincing case for how they'd move the dial for my team.
Background
I'm a volunteer in Chicago in charge of the local branch of the world's largest hackathon, NASA Space Apps. Every year NASA organizes a global event where 100k+ participants tackle real world problems in space and science using the latest techniques in AI, computer science, etc.
Due to the nature of the event (occurs in 550+ location in 150+ countries, no money flows to local leads) people in charge of local events have to maneuver quite a bit to mobilize their communities. This includes making partnerships, working with non-profits, finding sponsorships, and developing a local marketing and communication plan. We've turned our event in Chicago into the second largest in the Americas (out of about 200), and are doing our best to be one of the global leaders of the hackathon.
Project
My team is working in partnership with several international counterparts this cycle, and I'm looking to help contribute to building up a lasting ecosystem between Chile - Silicon Valley - Abu Dhabi and Chicago. I've got some good pieces in place, but could potentially use some help on both the fine details and the big picture of what we can accomplish. Chile is perhaps where we can do this most, so I'll summarize with what we've got to work with there:
- An official partnership with the US Embassy Chile. Working specifically with someone there who does educational outreach and has a background on astronomy. I've spoken with a number of Embassy people in Santiago and they are 10/10 outstanding. Also have other embassy contacts in other countries.
- Chilean counterparts who are also truly outstanding. They work in social impact for a large organization down there and run the Santiago, Antofagasta, Conception and a couple other locations.
- I am on the Board of Northwestern University's astrophysics research institute (CIERA) and we have some Spanish-language researchers who are interested in contributing. CIERA is a partner or involved with many of the large telescopes in Chile (Giant Magellan, Vera Rubin, Mothra) and some of the telescope teams have employees in Chile + existing educational outreach that we will be working with.
- American sponsoring companies. I'm fairly certain Microsoft will be in to sponsor at least us, Chile and Silicon Valley...actively trying to add companies right now.
- Various NASA contacts. These people are awesome, but difficult to get to meet with me. NASA lost 20% of its workforce over the past year and the remaining people seem to be strapped for time (not surprisingly).
- My team has a separate partnership with the Kyiv location that we initiated last year. We were able to contribute a small amount of personal donations as well as some subject matter expertise from CIERA scientists to help the participants there. Would like to get more to them this year, as well as help get their story out a little bit more.
Where You Come In
- Overall need help articulating and implementing our project here. Why is it important, how can it benefit everyone, and what should be the outcomes.
- I'd like to help make the case for and make it easy for more US Embassies to be involved with this event. Space Apps is at the nexus of space, AI, innovation, and international collaboration, and it's hugely popular at a number of geo-politically important areas of the world (India, for example). International local leads have reached out to me in the past wanting help contacting US Embassies, and even just having them show up to the hackathons usually helps with local partnerships.
- Need to close a couple more sponsorship deals with US-based tech companies and successfully work them into alignment with the goals and values of US embassies, CIERA, NASA, and ourselves.
- Due to various budgeting issues at NASA, we're going to have a tight turnaround to get things done this year and we're going to have to hustle.
Why
Contribute on a real life International Relations project and volunteer alongside NASA, US State Department, thousands of students around the world, volunteers both in the US and abroad, and various other contacts to make a big difference
This forum is clogged with articles about the decline of US soft-power. Well, if you care about that (like I and my team do), here's your chance to do something about it. Care about Ukraine? Stand up. Want to support incredibly hard working US embassy employees who are putting it on the line? Let's go.
DM or reach out to me at nasaspaceappschicago@gmail.com
I'm against AI-based communication on general principle and will delete anything written by AI without responding.
Links
Space Apps: https://www.spaceappschallenge.org/
me (please feel free to connect): https://www.linkedin.com/in/doncrowley1/
Last year's Chicago event: https://ciera.northwestern.edu/2025/10/22/students-tackle-real-world-problems-at-ciera-hosted-space-apps-challenge/
Announcement of US Embassy Chile partnership: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7422602752230359040
Disclaimers
I'm a volunteer and don't get paid for doing this. Most of the people I know (including my wife) think it's an incredibly strange hobby. I don't speak for NASA, the US State Department, Northwestern, Microsoft or anyone besides myself.