about 5 years ago
Hackathon Update: Hope You're Excited for Climate Change-Makers on the 26th!!
Hello Folks,
Congrats to joining our first-ever Climate Change-Makers Challenge!! We cannot wait to get going next Friday & wanted to share some general updates, especially as many logistics have gotten finalized these last few days:- Prize Update: We're so excited to have up to CAD $4,500 in gift cards available as prizes, thanks to the wonderful people at Ocean Wise, an environmental non-profit promoting ocean stewardship, appreciation & understanding. These are valued from $400 to $1,000, and will include a choice of gift cards to eco-friendly online stores (e.g. here). Read more on the prize section on Devpost!
- Big Thanks to Our Partners: In addition to Ocean Wise, the team at the OATHE Project is honored to partner with the SURGE innovation sandbox from Dalhousie university, Earth Hacks & Hack the Earth to make this hackathon happen... We were a bit late getting started but are already nearing our registration goal, which would not be possible without their help!
- Check Eligibility & Rules: Participants are also asked to check the rules & eligibility requirements prior to forming teams. In particular, we want to create an environment welcoming of first-time hackers, and hence ask each team have at least one person still in school/ university, one person relatively new to Devpost/ hackathons (60% of our registrants are brand-new to the platform!!), and 3-5 people on your team in total. We strongly encourage teams to come from diverse skill sets & will set up a Slack channel this weekend to coordinate team-making, possibly doing a Google Form as well to solicit project ideas/ team needs. Note that organizers may occasionally take an active role in team-making, for e.g to assign someone to a team if they struggle to find one themselves.
- Many Types of Innovation Welcome: We've had quite a few non-coders join, and some have asked if a solution requires code. Our answer? Apps are powerful examples of innovation in action & very welcome, but so are other types of innovation... Indeed, the next big climate change solution could be a novel engineering concept, a whitepaper sharing a new idea, a new way of organizing people, etc. As long as there is something you can demonstrate during the weekend, we welcome submissions of many types. And to be clear, any IP built on the weekend is 100% yours!
- Schedule Notes: We're still working this out & should have a final schedule announced by early next week! However, for now, anticipate to start with an intro group call with all participants @ ~6 PM EST on Friday, with submissions due 48 hours from that time, and a four-minute video/ recorded pitch as your deliverable. If needed, we will narrow down submissions to a few finalist teams, from whom at least one team member should be available to present their concept at the finals held during the Ocean Bridge National Conference on March 6. More details TBA.
- And, Spread the Word: And finally, we'd love for folks to spread the word! At most, we anticipate having the capacity to support up to 100 people & are about half-way there. So, get your friends registered! Coders, artists, environmentalists, business-people, engineers & others all welcome... And beginners even more so as well, we're an inclusive bunch :)