Sponsored by CoECI in 2016-2017, this series of challenges was to develop an algorithm to help identify and react to illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU) (see the problem statement for contest 1; problem statement for contest 2). The first contest drew in 77 competitors who submitted 1,206 submissions while competing for $18,000 in prizes. The top five competitors submitted high-quality solutions with at least 97% predictive power, effectively separating "fishing" from "not fishing" vessels. The second contest had 56 competitors with 807 submissions, competing for a $26,000 prize pool. The top solutions from this contest can classify a fishing vessel by four major categories, with up to 95% predictive power. This work was nominated for the Secretary of the Navy’s Innovation Award in 2018.
