Winners get two prizes
There will be 7 winners in Hack for Earth Youth Hackathon at COP27 – one winner for each challenge. The Hackathon winners will be invited to Prize Ceremony with feedback from world leaders.
You can watch the Prize Ceremony on United Nation Climate Change Youtube Channel
- Monday November 14th at 3 PM CET (4 PM Egypt time EET)
During the Prize Ceremony we will bring together the winners from the Hack For Earth Youth Hackathon, representatives of youth organizations, and leading policy makers to discuss how young people can make an important impact on combating climate change. The session will empower youth leaders to present their views and the digital green tech solutions developed during the Global Hack for Earth Youth Hackathon to senior policy makers.
Build for Earth is a unique acceleration program, the final part of the Hack for Earth Dream – Hack – Build process, designed to make innovative solutions become a reality.
Build for Earth acceleration program is created by three main sources of input:
1. International research and statistics on startup failure and success
2. Interviews with leading global innovation experts
3. Conclusions from hackathons conducted with Hack for Sweden, Hack the Crisis Sweden, EUvsVirus, Kids Hack the Crisis and more
Research and data, input from innovation experts and learnings from previous hackathon winners points in a clear direction - a great team is the most crucial aspect to turn an innovative solution into reality.
A strong focus on team collaboration and psychological safety is a key aspect of the program since research shows that creating psychological safety within a group is correlated with improved performance, team learning and work satisfaction.
An optimized and value driven team can better utilize the skills and knowledge on how to become a successful startup, such as creating business models, understanding product to market fit, involving stakeholders, creating purposeful partnerships, and measuring the impact.
At the end of the acceleration program all solutions shall have:
- An autonomous team with the right skill set, a high degree of psychological safety and a transformative leadership implemented
- Knowledge and skills on how to build a startup, a company/organization and what it takes to succeed and realize a great solution
- A well-defined and deliverable digital product and/or service
- How sustainability behaviors can be incorporated into the team and measured when providing a service/product
- Partnerships and collaborations supportive of the team and its solution, as well as financing options and customers for the finished product
The order and content are carefully selected to provide an optimal setup for the teams and the solutions success and development into tangible tools on the market.
Every workshop is accompanied by an assignment, with the purpose of deepening the participants level of knowledge, aptitude and skills.
1. Clarify the concept
A starting point for the development of any innovative solution is to reassess if you as a team have understood the problem you are trying to solve correctly. The most common reason for failing as a startup is to have misunderstood the market and the needs for your product/service. Once that is done it also important to set up a road map towards your vision with a long-term goal and checkpoints along the way. Lastly, to include stakeholders in this process is crucial for success.
2. Prioritize and plan
Great teams also know how to make great decisions, when to pivot and how to develop a useful product or service. Having a structured way of working together in a team makes working together smoother and decreases the risk for misunderstandings and role diffusion.
3. Optimize the team
Googles Aristotle project in 2014 showed that the most important factor for a successful team is the level of Psychological Safety. This is a concept with a strong research foundation and can be taught to teams to improve their collaboration and learning. Forming a startup means setting the culture for how individuals work together, which will affect every step along the way. It is crucial to create an environment that accepts, and even encourages, failing and learning from mistakes. This type of group climate also demands a transformational leadership, with leaders that are role models and challenge the team in a positive way.
4. Business and market
A solution that is to be implemented within a market economy cannot do without a profound understanding of the market and an achievable business model. A good way to plan out a business model is using the Business Canvas Model, that includes important aspects such as value propositions, customers, and system change. As every team has sustainability as a key value, this must be integrated in the business model as well. And the teams must learn that their business model will most probably take different forms along the way, adjusting to the market, product development and new information available.
5. Pitch and present
Learning how to communicate and create relationships in your business, is vital for success. The mastering of social media channels, a relevant website and elevator pitch are key ingredients to any endeavor in business. How you to tell your story to stakeholders, investors, and potential partners is imperative.
6. Data collection and measuring impact
Sustainability is all about measuring what you do. To achieve impact, it has to be measured, and not just the product or service, the team behind the work has to be a role model for sustainability. Data is crucial for the testing of prototypes and MVPs, no matter if it is the properties of a specific product or the opinions of potential users. There are models to collect data and to align your startup with the UN SDG’s.
7. Financing
Without resources and financing it would be impossible for a team to realize their solution in the long run. Choosing carefully how to finance the development of a new product or service is an important decision. It is crucial to understand the financing opportunities available and the differences of these options.
8. Growing as a startup
A great idea has to be formalized to continue to grow. This could mean creating a new venture company and defining equity/shares in that company, or deciding to become a non-profit organization.
9. Partnership
No great idea can survive in a vacuum - the importance of partnerships is crucial. Finding the right partner organisations is very important for the future of an innovative solution, and sometimes innovators overlook this important part.
10. The psychology of sustainability
Creating a more sustainable world is all about behavior change. Individuals, groups, organizations, and nations have to behave differently for change to occur. Research on behavior change shows specific methods that we can use to increase our mental health and personal development, and these behavioral changes can be connected to a sustainability mindset. If we can combine these two perspectives, we can improve as human beings at the same time as we are creating a more sustainable future.
