Hack for Earth at Expo 2020
The global online hackathon at Expo 2020 was organized by the Hack for Earth Foundation in collaboration with the United Nations. Amazon Web Services, The Nordic Council of Ministers, and Astra Zeneca as the main collaborating organizations in November, 2021. In total, Hack for Earth at Expo 2020 had 32 organisations as collaborating and/or supporting partner organizations. The seven winners concluded the very first Build for Earth 6-month acceleration program in the spring of 2022.
The winners
Water Category Category Winner
VarunaBlue
Team Members:
Description:
Motivation:
Partnership Category Category Winner
Luminous Teen
Team Members:
Description:
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Environment Category Category Winner
Sustainability Insights
Team Members:
Description:
Motivation:
Health Category Category Winner
Nittiv
Team Members:
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Motivation:
Human Rights Category Category Winner
Digital Bridge 360
Team Members:
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Motivation:
Sustainable Society Category Category Winner
Recy-Block
Team Members:
Description:
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Education Category Category Winner
International Qualifications ID
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World Map
Participants & Partners
Teams from 121 countries
Winning teams
Winning teams
Jury criteria
Each jury group will evaluate your solution based on these six criteria. The jury criteria are equally important in the evaluation. The jury criteria are the same for all 7 challenge categories.
Comprehensibility
Comprehensibility of the solution proposal’s value proposition and main use case
- Is it easy to understand the solution?
- Is it easy to understand how the solution works and how it will be implemented to solve the challenge?
- How well detailed is the description of the solution?
- Does it include an understanding of the key stakeholders and ecosystems that are relevant to the realisation of the solution?
- Will the end users of the solution understand it too, or do they need special skills to take part of it or use it?
Realisability
Realisability of the solution from its current idea stage to implemented solution, used by its intended users in its problem context
- How realistic is the time plan?
- Does the solution have access to all the needed data (if applicable)?
- How well are potential risks calculated for?
- How soon can the solution be available to the intended users?
- Is the technology mature enough (if applicable)?
- Can a minimum viable product be created within 3 months?
- Can a proof of concept be created within 6 months?
Innovativeness
Innovativeness of the idea behind the solution, as well as the intended technology to be used in an implementation of the solution (if applicable).
- In what way is this solution innovative?
- Are there existing or similar solutions?
- How does the solution differ from any existing solutions?
Scalability
Scalability of the solution if it is implemented and realized.
- How many are experiencing the problem that this solution is intended to solve (if applicable)?
- How well does this solution scale?
Solving the SDGs
Does this solution correlate to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and how well does it solve the challenge it is intended to address.
- How well does the solution correlate to the SDGs?
- In what respect does the solution solve one or more of the SDGs?
- How many in the solutions target audience would experience an improvement and how extensive would that improvement be?
Team
Team structure, functionality, adaptability and potential to scale a solution successfully
- How well is the team suited to realize the solution?
- Has the team reflected on any additional needs in the team structure to realize the solution?
- Are the members of this team motivated to invest time and energy to realize this solution?
Challenge Juries
Our partners















































Our mentors for
Hack for Earth at Expo 2020
Amen
Agriculture

Education
Barbara Carolina Pineda Truyol
Innovation Business Learning Process

Camilla Fransson
Climate calculations in Infrastructure Climate mitigation from Infrastructure climate as one parameter when making decisions

Education
Catalina Ramirez Yunge
Gestión de Personas Manejo de aula y relaciones en comunidad educativa Gestión del cambio

Christoffer Jonsson
Design Thinking and UX Corporate Startup Engagement Sustainable Power Transition

Human Rights
Claire Thomas
Employment Rights Investigations Ethics

Sustainable Society
Darren Dunn
Organic Chemistry & analytical science. Pharmaceutical manufacturing in China & Europe Health & wellbeing at work & home Sustainable & environmentally green travel and housing/living

Deepak Ghule
natural farming water management soil management

Donkor Paul Jnr.
Computer hardware Computer Software Meaning and importance of ICT legislations

Edgaras Kriukonis
Creating value proposition Business model canvas Digital transformation

Fredrik Hellman
Reduction of green house gas emissions Adapting to climate change Safety and Health at the work place

Ghaleb Al Ahdab
Skills Industry Government Landscape

Harri Larsson
Leadership Entrepreneurship Cybersecurity

Environment
Irene Bramke
Man-made chemicals (pharmaceuticals, pesticides) in the environment Sustainability challenges in the pharma industry Soil carbon retention

Environment
Jenny Stenström
Digital transformation Pharmaceutical industry Innovation
John Venier
Climate éducation centres, sdgs clubs, mentoring Accelerators and incubators, funding from Europe and United nations Circular economy, NAP, NDC

Jorge Alejandro Díaz Monsalves
Innovastion Entrepreneurship Local industries

Health
Kristofer Vernmark
Psychological design - using research on human behavior to create real change in digital solutions Digital health - using technology to increase psychological wellbeing Team effectiveness - how to work together as an effective hackathon team

Health
Lakshmikanth Karur Rajamani
Sustainable solutions for Healthcare Data for social goodness Artificial Intelligence for Humans
Ludovico Dejak
Circular Economy Strategies: regeneration in cities innovation ecosystem 360° Impact Strategies: Organisational Design, Benefit Corporation and B Corp Design Thinking: from an idea to a disruptive business plan

Maya Moukbel
Innovation Entrepreneurship Technology
Natasa Kurucki
Creating a business and your own startup, where to start, how to get contacts, what are the most important steps to get on your feet? Pitching in front of investors, venture capitals, and angels. Business models, plans, and partnerships. Innovation - way forward, how, where, and when?
Sima Valizadeh
Smart Manufacturing; digital transformation, Adopt sustainable production methods. Distributed, Reused and recycled through dditive Manufacturing /3D Printing technology Sustainable Development/industry: economic growth & production and sharing technology, science and innovation
Tejashree Dewoolkar
Sustainable cities- System thinking facilitation and Innovation, Program design and sustainable product development, zero waste design Climate change- Risk assessment, Business strategy, ESG rating of Business Diversity and Inclusion, water and conscious energy consumption : product development
Our challenges for
Hack for Earth at Expo 2020
We have seven challenge categories connected to the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. For each one of the seven challenge categories there are five specific challenges. They are the foundation of the hackathon competition.
The challenges in Hack for Earth are firmly anchored in citizen driven innovation. To create the challenges we have analyzed 1K+ dreams from 60+ countries from the global Dream for Earth campaign (read more about Dream for Earth here), and combined the result with the expertise & knowledge from our partner community (read more about our partners here). Finally, the Board of the Hack for Earth Foundation decided on the final five challenges in each category.
What are SDGs?

Water Category
Billions of people today are lacking access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene which lead to deadly diseases and complications - that could have been prevented. Our oceans are suffering from how we treat our planet and dead zones are continuing to spread even though we know that the oceans play a crucial role to us as human beings and to the whole ecosystem.
1. How can we define the average, fair, and over usage of water consumption relevant to location and communities and region and map it to water distribution? 2. How can we improve an individual's knowledge on their water footprint to help them make better purchase decisions? 3. How can we define which type of plants are suitable to specific climate and location and quantity of water needed, when designing green spaces in cities? 4. How can we keep our oceans/natural water resources safe and clean from plastics, both for us and biodiversity? 5. How can we manage, control, and monitor overfishing and what types of fish is or is not suitable for the fishing season?
6. Clean water & sanitation 14. Life below water
Partnership Category
Compassion and a strong moral compass is essential to every democratic society. 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 Covid-19 still tormenting the world, 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.
1. How might we engage youths around the world to co-create solutions to some of the world’s complex challenges? 2. How can we break cultural, technological, and organizational borders for partnerships to solve complex global challenges? 3. How might we help establish trust between organizations to build effective global partnerships? 4. How can we use storytelling to build concrete collaborations for global goals? 5. How might we bridge the digital divide to build unity and remove boundaries?
16. Peace, justice and strong institutions 17. Partnerships for the goals
Environment Category
Global warming and disastrous weather conditions are all over the news constantly, 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 the disturbing changes in our climate are increasing too rapidly. The oceans drive global systems that make earth habitable for us humans but still there is a continuous deterioration of the oceans, having an adversarial effect on the ecosystems and biodiversity. Life below water is suffering as well as life on land.
1. What are the enablers to accelerating the sustainable and just transition towards affordable and clean energy? 2. What are the opportunities to reduce fossil fuels? 3. What can be done at the community/individual level to leverage green technology to prevent extreme climate situations and raise climate action 4. How to accelerate the reduction of water consumption and safeguarding the quality of water (land/ocean)? 5. How to incentivize stakeholders to build a supportive environment to co-create solutions for the climate?
7. Affordable and clean energy 13. Climate Action 14. Life below water 15. Life on land
Health Category
Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being at all ages is essential to a sustainable development for the people on this planet, and it is also a human right according to the United Nations. Still, this is not something that all people on earth can take for granted. Not everyone can even be sure that they will have access to something as basic as food, and even more people than before are suffering from acute hunger. The people of the world, suffering from hunger, need a change, today.
1. How can we improve healthcare system preparedness for future incidents? 2. How do we empower nurses and community leaders to raise awareness about health (female health, nutrition, vaccination) in rural areas? 3. How can we have/access true, evidence-based information to address health challenges and inform policymaking? 4. How can public-private partnerships help country health systems to deliver medicines in a locally affordable context? 5. How can we preserve student’s mental well-being while studying? (this includes positive associations with failure, innovation)
2. Zero hunger 3. Good health and well-being,
Human Rights Category
Human Rights are inherent to all human beings on earth. As humans we should have the same right to life, such as the right to food, education, work, health and liberty. But still, this is not the case for everyone. There is, unfortunately, a large variety of inequalities that both have a negative effect on an individual level, on society and for the world.
1. How can we ensure that children in schools have access to healthy and environmentally friendly produced food? 2. How do we ensure equal access to information through the internet? 3. How do we tackle climate change effects as a global challenge leaving no one behind? 4. How to provide everyone with the opportunity to be creative and inspired to imagine a better future? 5. How can we ensure equal rights for women and girls and fight discrimination?
1. No poverty 2. Zero hunger 10. Reduced inequalities
Sustainable Society Category
More than half the world’s population is living in cities and the number is expected to rise even higher in the years to come. On the one hand, the cities contribute to economic growth and progress but on the other hand cities are also accountable for leaving devastating footprints on our planet. Technology and innovation are keys at the forefront in finding sustainable solutions for our cities, and at the same time the digital divide is still growing. It remains a fact that many people on our planet lack affordable access to the Internet. Also, economic growth and decent jobs are not something available to everyone. Our planet is suffering due to our consumption and production and leaving many behind - and our common future is depending on a change.
1. How can smart societies accelerate the transformation to sustainable societies? 2. How can sustainable infrastructure support societies and make housing more affordable and accessible for all? 3. How can we make ethical and fair data available for all to develop sustainable societies? 4. How can we make our cities greener? 5. How can we build resilience in communities' infrastructure to adapt to climate change?
8. Decent work & economic growth 9. Industry, innovation & infrastructure 11. Sustainable cities & communities 12. Responsible consumption & production
Education Category
Education is a basic key to success in our lives, but it is also the very foundation on which we can build a brighter future for our planet. Still, groups of people don’t have access to basic education, like reading and writing. Many, and often girls, are excluded or not permitted to go to school. Negative effects arise from children and youth not having access to education, both on an individual level but also on a socioeconomic level. Gender equality is a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world, along with absence from discrimination based on religion, sexual preference, political views, ethnicity, age and background.
1. How can we create an educational model that is accessible across the globe for all and that fosters agency to solve global challenges? 2. Bravery in education for teachers and learners. How can we support teachers to update their curriculum to meet the demands of the future? 3. How can we assure financing and availability for up-skilling, re-skilling for life-long learning for all? 4. How can tech help educational institutions to combat disinformation? 5. “Educational passport”. How can we assure that qualifications get evaluated in a standardized way internationally? (Alternative educational systems and forms of learning, informal ways, outside of classroom skills, soft skills, etc)
4. Quality education 5. Gender equality 10. Reduced inequalities
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