Athina Trakas
As an Innovation Action and Partnerships Specialist at ECMWF (European Centre of Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) I am co-ordinating Code for Earth, an innovation action run by ECMWF.
I have always been interested in networking and connecting people. I am grateful that, with my work, I can exactly do this, and help foster a culture of continuous learning, mutual support, and shared success.
In the past I presented internationally on geo-information management topics, mainly in the areas of OGC processes, interoperability and open standards.
With a diploma in Geography I started working in the field of GIS in 1998. In 2006, I joined OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium), and worked as OGC’s Director for Member Success and Development for Europe, Central Asia and Africa. In December 2022 I joined ECMWF.
Since 2006 I am a member of OSGeo.
Session
Code for Earth is an exciting innovation activity led by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and supported by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), Destination Earth, the European Union’s Africa Regional Centres of Excellence Programme (ArcX) and partner organisations.
Each summer, it invites individuals and developer teams from diverse backgrounds in Earth sciences, computer science, and software development to submit proposals for pre‑defined challenges. Selected teams will work over a four-months Coding Phase on their project, supported by a team of mentors from ECMWF and partner organisations.
The programme is rooted in innovation, cross‑disciplinary collaboration, and open‑source software development, delivering practical tools that advance ECMWF operations and major EU initiatives. New in 2026 is an Africa stream aligned with the EU’s ArcX programme, further broadening the programme’s global reach.
Since 2018, Code for Earth has produced more than 65 open‑source developments addressing real‑world challenges in data science, visualisation, AI/ML, analytics, and user‑support tooling. This presentation highlights advancements from the 2025 and 2026 editions and outlines opportunities for developers, researchers, and organisations to join future cycles.
2025 outcomes: Several results from the 2025 edition have already been taken up by ECMWF colleagues, with new visualisation modules, streamlined data‑access utilities, and ML‑based analysis components now supporting operational and research workflows. The presentation will explain these outcomes in more detail, and selected tools and prototypes will be showcased to demonstrate their practical impact and adoption.