Research Scholars from the Remote Sensing Group, Department of Earth and Space Sciences, IIST : Ms Anagha S Sarma, Mr Bhargav Parulekar, Ms Humaira Sanam along with Ms Aditi Roy, research scholar from Delhi University won Third Prize for their team activity in the IEEE GRSS Summer School Data Challenge conducted at the Griffith University (Gold Coast Campus) as a part of 2025 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Brisbane, Australia. The students under the team name ABHA worked on the challenge of Live Fuel Moisture Content (LFMC) Estimation. They presented a workflow which coupled weather data with Sentinel-2 satellite data and provided prediction of LFMC using standalone as well as ensemble ML algorithms and presented an ML model that can predict LFMC. The summer school was conducted from 31 July 2025 - 02 August 2025, in which 40 participants from all over the world were chosen to work in a collaborative manner for providing solutions for the problem of bushfire, a prominent disaster faced by Australia. Domain experts such as Yongze Song (senior lecturer, Curtin University), Lynn Miller (lecturer, Monash University), Petra Helmholz (A/professor, Curtin University), Marta Yebra (Professor, Australian National University) were part of the committee for guiding and assessing the tasks performed by participants. The 3-day summer school involved the introduction of concepts of machine learning to the participants, followed by the introduction of tools for remote sensing and geospatial intelligence analysis by Yongze Song. Remote sensing and climatic data of bushfire was provided to the participants. Tools such as Google

Earth Engine (GEE), Python & R were introduced to guide for the applications of temporal analysis and spatial analysis. Primary data challenge prepared by Lynn Miller included 1) Burnt area detection and 2) Live Fuel Moisture Content Estimation. Participants were allowed to select any one challenge out of these. On the final day, participant groups were given the opportunity to showcase their work. This final session was chaired by Petra Helmholz, Lynn Miller, Yongze
Song.