The OPEN17 Challenge: Online Coaching of Young Innovators to Tackle the Sustainable Development Goals with Citizen Science and Open Data

Abstract

In this article, we introduce the Open17 Challenge, an online coaching programme, inspired by the 17 United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This challenge has occurred roughly once a year since 2015, when the UN launched the SDGs. It lasts five weeks and involves five two-hour online coaching sessions as well as homework for the participants between sessions. The objective of the challenge is to coach a team of students about how to apply citizen science tools and methodologies to generate open data relevant to the SDGs. The goal of the coaching is to help each team develop their idea to the stage where they can make a compelling pitch that involves crowdsourcing of citizen-generated data. The format of the challenge has evolved as the organizing institutions have learned from each edition and improved iteratively. The purpose of this article is to describe the evolving methodology of the Open17 Challenge in the context of challenge-based learning (CBL) and more specifically discuss its relevance to e-learning. In particular, we analyse the potential of this methodology to generate new citizen science projects on issues relevant to the SDGs, with a view to enabling other organizations to adapt and apply this approach to specific SDG-related challenges.