All of the challenges are based on the SDGs (UN's Sustainable Development Goals) and all have important aspects of climate change, and are chosen because of their urgency with which we need to solve them.
Each hacker team selects one challenge within a challenge category. This is what you base your solution on during the hackathon.
Each challenge category includes multple defined challenges, created in collaboration with our partner organizations.
We will award one winner for each challenge category.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. Addressing the global challenges we face, including poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace, justice and more.
Read more at globalgoals.org.
The food we consume and the methods use in its production significantlyimpact both our health and the environment.
The journey of food—from growth and processing to transportation,distribution, preparation, consumption, and disposal—contributes to thecreation of greenhouse gases that trap heat and contribute to climate change.Approximately one-third of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are linked tofood. Agriculture and land use represent the largest contributors tofood-related greenhouse gases. These include methane produced in cattle'sdigestive processes, nitrous oxide from fertilizers used in crop production,carbon dioxide stemming from deforestation for agricultural expansion, as wellas other emissions from manure management, rice cultivation, burning cropresidues, and fuel usage on farms.
In contrast, a smaller portion of food-related greenhouse gas emissionsarises from activities like food refrigeration and transportation, industrialprocesses involved in packaging (such as paper and aluminum production), andthe management of food waste.
We need to innovate the way we produce and consume food, in order to fightclimate change effectively, and we need to do it now.
Challenges:
Transportation serves as the vital link connecting people, cultures, and economies across the globe. It underpins modern societies by facilitating the exchange of goods and exploration of new territories. Furthermore, robust transport networks grant access to essential public services like education and healthcare, thereby enhancing overall quality of life. Additionally, transportation infrastructure contributes significantly to economic growth by generating jobs and spreading prosperity, especially in remote regions.
Yet, our current transportation model has significant drawbacks. The sector substantially impacts the environment and human health.
While strides have been made in improving the energy efficiency of new vehicles like cars, vans, trucks, planes, and ships, these advancements have not kept pace with the overall increase in transport emissions. The expanding volume of transport activities continues to exert pressure on greenhouse gas emissions, and demand across all transport modes is anticipated to rise further. We need to innovate the transport sector, and we need to do it fast.
Challenges:
Energy stands at the forefront of the climate crisisand holds the key to its resolution.
A significant portion of earth's enveloping greenhousegases, responsible for trapping the sun's heat, stem from energy generation.Fossil fuels, used extensively to produce electricity and heat, notablycontribute to this predicament. Coal, oil, and gas - categorized as fossilfuels - overwhelmingly contribute to global climate change, constituting over75 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 percent of allcarbon dioxide emissions.The scientific consensus is resolute: to avert thedirest repercussions of climate change, we must slash emissions by almost halfby 2030 and attain net-zero emissions by 2050.
This imperative necessitates a departure from fossilfuel dependency and a substantial investment in alternative energy sources.These sources should be clean, readily accessible, economically feasible,sustainable, and reliable.
Presently, despite fossil fuels still dominating morethan 80 percent of global energy production, cleaner energy sources areprogressively gaining ground. Approximately 29 percent of electricity ispresently derived from renewable sources – but we need to do more, and we arein a hurry.
Challenges:
In collaboration with our co-organizer Ericsson, the following challenges have been created:
Education and awareness on the effects and causes ofclimate change is a fundamental need to create real action on climate change, itis the very foundation on which we could build a brighter future for ourplanet. Still, groups of people don’t have access to basic education on theeffects of climate change. Many are excluded or not permitted to go to schooleven. Negative effects arise from people not having access to education onclimate change, both on an individual level but also on a socioeconomic level.
Challenges:
More than half the world’s population is living incities and the number is expected to rise even higher in the years tocome. On the one hand, the cities contribute to economic growth andprogress but on the other hand cities are also accountable for leavingdevastating footprints on our planet.
Technology and innovation are keys at the forefront infinding sustainable solutions for our cities, and at the same time thedigital divide is still growing. It remains a fact that many people living incities on our planet lack affordable access to energy and the Internet. Ourplanet is suffering due to our consumption and production and leaving manybehind – and the future for our life in the cities is depending on a radicaland fast change.
Challenges:
Global warming and disastrous weather conditions are all over the newsconstantly, and these ominous climate changes are undeniably caused by mankind.It doesn't matter where in the world you are living, we can all see that thedisturbing changes in our climate are increasing too rapidly. We need to createsolutions to save our forests, biodiversity and animal life.
Challenges:
Looking at the world, development seems to be going in the wrong direction. In many places institutions are threatened, people are exposed to violence, organized crime is flourishing, child abuse and unequal access to justice is common. Creating partnerships worldwide is more than ever crucial to this world and us human beings.
With climate change becoming an exceedingly huge threat, we need to collaborate worldwide in supporting developing countries as well as sharing knowledge, giving and sharing access to technology, science and innovation. All this in order to make the change and find the solutions we need, to the challenges we are facing. Collaboration and effective partnerships where we stop blaming each other and start working together is key for us to fight climate change.
Challenges:
Our oceans are suffering from how we treat our planet and dead zones arecontinuing to spread even though we know that the oceans play a crucial role tous as human beings and to the whole ecosystem. The oceans drive globalsystems that make earth habitable for us humans but still there is a continuous deterioration of the oceans, having an adversarialeffect on the ecosystems and biodiversity. We need to find solutionsaddressing climate change for our oceans and the water existing on our planet.
Challenges: