The Government Digital Service, Met Office, Snowflake and Connected Places Catapult are bringing together public sector practitioners, researchers, innovators, technologists and domain experts to explore how weather and climate data can create greater value across the UK. 

This is an in-person event with limited capacity. Early registration is recommended, and we will confirm places as soon as possible to allow time to plan travel and accommodation arrangements.

About the challenge
Weather and climate data already supports important decisions across public services, research and industry. But for many users, the data can still be difficult to find, interpret, combine with other datasets, or apply in real operational settings.

This challenge is designed to explore where those barriers appear, what would make the data easier to use, and what value could be unlocked if more people could confidently apply it.

By the end of the day, each team will aim to produce:

• A practical concept, prototype or demonstrator
• A clear user story centred on a real decision or workflow
• Evidence of where weather or climate data could improve that decision
• Insight into what made the data easier or harder to use
• Recommendations for what could be developed further

Participants will work in multidisciplinary teams to develop practical concepts, demonstrators and user stories. The focus is not only on what can be built, but on what can be learned from the process of working with the data.

Exploration themes
Participants will work on one of four exploration themes.

Climate Resilience and Public Services
How might weather and climate data help public bodies make better operational decisions?
This theme could include flood resilience, emergency planning, local resilience forums, infrastructure management, community preparedness or climate adaptation.

Health, Housing and Wellbeing
How might weather and climate data support earlier intervention and better health or housing outcomes?
This theme could include children’s health, housing quality, damp and mould risk, long-term health conditions, vulnerable populations, healthy ageing or preventative public health.

Events and Operational Planning
How might weather and climate data support safer, more effective planning and live operations?
This theme could include major events, venue operations, contingency planning, safety management, resource deployment, crowd management or weather-related disruption.

Open Innovation Wildcard
What other high-value decisions could be improved through better use of weather and climate data?
This theme is for ideas that do not fit neatly into the areas above. Participants may explore opportunities in transport, energy, agriculture, retail, insurance, the built environment, education, tourism, sustainability or other sectors. Teams choosing this theme should be ready to explain the decision they want to improve, why weather or climate data matters, and what value could be created.

Why attend?
This event will help shape future thinking around how public sector data can be made easier to discover, understand and use.

Your work will contribute to an evidence base for future Met Office and Government Digital Service activities, helping identify where weather and climate data can support better decisions, stronger public services, improved research and new innovation opportunities.

If you work with weather-sensitive decisions, complex data, public services, research, operational planning or emerging technology, this is an opportunity to help define what comes next.

Who should attend?
We are seeking attendees who know and care about real weather and climate data problems, and are willing to be hands on in exploring solutions to these on the day. An ideal participant will:

1. Have lived experienced tackling business problems that rely on weather and climate data
2. Be willing to work with teammates and experts in the room to interrogate Met Office’s data, identify gaps or needs in how it is currently described and made available, and develop prototype solutions using it in Snowflake’s platform.

We are seeking a mix of technical and operational experiences and no prior knowledge of Met Office’s data or Snowflake’s platform is required.

What participants will have access to?
Participants will have access to Met Office weather and climate datasets, a Snowflake development environment, AI-enabled tools and support from Met Office, Snowflake, Government Digital Service and Connected Places Catapult specialists. A pre-event briefing will be provided before the day, including onboarding guidance, available datasets and challenge information. Participants may also bring relevant open datasets, public datasets or their own problem statements where appropriate.

Virtual pre-event briefing
To help participants get the greatest value from the day, we strongly encourage attendance at the virtual pre-event briefing on Tuesday 14 July, 1:30–3:30 pm.

Webinar overview 

• Introduction to the tools and platform to be used on the day of event
• Challenge overview
• Event logistics
• Q&A

The objective of the pre brief is to enable participants to spend as much time as possible on the day building using a range of tools without requiring prior coding knowledge.

Registered attendees will be automatically registered to the virtual briefing. You will receive a separate email with the joining link.