We sponsor · Non-profit organisations
Hack4Climate
100 developers, four days, one boat on the Rhine - the first hackathon ever held at a UN climate summit.
- 1st
- hackathon ever held at a UN climate COP
- 100
- developers selected, from 500+ applicants
- 1,300
- developers engaged across 17 global workshops
- 21
- climate solutions built in four days
- 30+
- countries represented
The story
In November 2017, while diplomats negotiated inside the COP23 climate summit in Bonn, a different kind of climate work was happening a few hundred metres away - on a boat. Hack4Climate moored a riverboat called 'The Fiji' on the Rhine and filled it with the best climate-minded engineers it could find.
It was, by its own claim, the first hackathon ever staged at a UN climate conference. Around 100 developers were chosen from more than 500 applicants worldwide - the tip of a pipeline of some 1,300 engineers who had passed through 17 preparatory workshops in blockchain hubs around the globe. The brief: use distributed-ledger technology, IoT and AI to make the Paris Agreement measurable and real.
Over four days the teams shipped 21 solutions across five fronts - tracking emissions, pricing carbon, distributing renewable energy, protecting land, and cleaning up transport. The winner, GainForest, used blockchain and satellite imagery to let people stake money on protecting specific patches of rainforest; founded by ETH Zurich's David Dao, it outlived the hackathon and went on to real deployments.
The boat's name was no accident. Fiji held the COP23 presidency - and is among the places with the most to lose to a warming planet. A pointed choice: the people most exposed to the problem, hosting the people trying to engineer a way out.
“Climate is the world's biggest challenge; blockchain, a major driver of innovation.”
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Highlights
A genuine world first
The first hackathon ever held at a UN climate COP, endorsed by the UNFCCC Secretariat.
Built on a boat
Four days of hacking on 'The Fiji', a Rhine riverboat - named for the island state holding the COP23 presidency.
From 500 to 100
~100 developers chosen from 500+ applicants, drawn from a global pipeline of 1,300 across 17 workshops.
It outlived the weekend
Winner GainForest - blockchain plus satellite imagery to protect rainforest - went on to real-world deployment.
The facts
- What
- A climate hackathon held alongside the UN's COP23 summit - developers building blockchain, IoT and AI tools for the Paris Agreement, endorsed by the UNFCCC and run under the Fiji COP23 presidency.
- Who
- Organised by the Zurich-based Cleantech21 Foundation (founder Nick Beglinger), with Connect4Climate / the World Bank Group and the Climate Ledger Initiative.
- When
- 12-16 November 2017, during COP23.
- Where
- On 'The Fiji', a riverboat moored on the Rhine in Bonn, Germany.
Why we sponsor it
Climate is the ultimate hard problem - unforgiving, global, and short on time. It deserves the best engineers, not the leftover hours. Hack4Climate put serious technical talent on the one deadline that doesn't move, and we wanted to stand behind that.
It also shares our single standard: it isn't about good intentions, it's about whether the thing you built actually works. A demo that ships beats a deck that promises. That's the bar we hold every search to.