Can hackathons help solve the climate crisis?

Climate + hacking + marathon = Climathon. If you put a bunch of creative, tech-minded people in a room, and ask them to come up with some ideas to solve a problem, what happens? They come up with some innovative, workable solutions to the problem.

So, could hackathons help solve elements of the climate change crisis? There are already some examples. At the 40-hour HackZurich 2021’s water challenge hackathon, water technology company Xylem’s Team Res–Queue came up with a new way to respond to abrupt flood events, optimizing rescue response using machine learning models.

And, as UN COP26 readies its annual conference with a mission to limit global warming and emissions, Climathon is going to create more.

Climathon in Darmstadt

Climathon is a global movement that offers a clear pathway to climate action via ideation and creating solutions. Climate protection and sustainable development play a major role in Software AG’s agenda, and we will enter two exclusive Software AG teams to bring forth ideas and offer experience in programming.

This is a chance for us to make a big difference while working with real satellite data from the European Space Agency (ESA) (and an opportunity to win a grand prize for climate change solutions).

And it is coming to our hometown of Darmstadt in Germany. There, partnered by Software AG’s University Relations department, the teams will be hosted at our HQ in Darmstadt from 28-30 October. This is supported by the company-wide Give Back to the World initiative, which reinforces our commitment to social and environmental causes.

Data to reduce emissions

Some of the issues we are expecting to be addressed include using CO2 data to optimize and reduce emissions. It is currently not easy to measure CO2 emissions directly. So, as an Internet of Things challenge, it would be interesting to see how easy we can make it to use IoT connected devices and build up a data pipe into the cloud – where data visualization and optimization can be coordinated. We are offering all Climathon participants the use of our Cumulocity IoT platform which puts the power of IoT data in the hands of your organization—because the more accessible your IoT insights, the greater their business impact.

One challenge will be CO2 footprint optimization, which can also be an asset planning topic that might be managed using Cumulocity IoT device management. You could:  

• Connect both satellite data and data from metering stations (e.g., Sensor Community), with IoT Cloud
• Identify discrepancies and define ecologically worthwhile thresholds
• Define optimization criteria.

Another one will be in relation to smart cities. Our teams will use IoT in conjunction with the ESA data to come up with ideas to accelerate the digital transformation in cities and their communities:

• Connect devices across existing carrier network infrastructures (whether new or legacy)
• manage potentially large volumes of fast-moving data across wide networks spanning edge to cloud
• Use real-time analytics to provide valuable insights to the life in a city.

The opportunities are endless, and we look forward to seeing what our teams – and the others – come up with at Climathon 2021 in Darmstadt!!

You can still register now, by clicking here. 

Learn more about Software AG by clicking below.