Announcing…Winning Teams from Sovereign Nature Initiative’s Winter 2022 Hackathon Challenge
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After a great wave of interest surrounding Sovereign Nature Initiative’s Winter 2022 Hackathon Challenge, the SNI team is thrilled to formally announce the winning teams, as well as thank our incredible supporters, advisors, and metaverse architects.
From February 4–6, several projects were built using blockchain, smart contracts, SDKs, and UI components to create new technologies that reward the preservation of green space, promote authentic encounters with nature, improve mindfulness and attention, and more. Together with our judges, we were amazed by each pitch’s creativity, originality, and quality from our final 22 teams.
On behalf of the SNI team, a sincere thank you goes out to all participating teams for devoting your time and energy to building projects and creating technology at the service of nature.
Teams were evaluated based on the criteria: originality, utility, holistic thinking, collaboration, and adherence to the challenge’s themes.
Congratulations to the winners of SNI’s Winter Hackathon Challenge:
Winners
Space4Good
This team created a new data collection game to generate new and improved environmental data that will eventually help nature fund its own monitoring, maintenance, and recovery. Team members included Alexander Gunkel, Jessica Immelman, and Federico Franciamore.
Biocenosis
This duo tackled both intrinsic and extrinsic valuation of nature and pitched the idea of creating acoustic gardens, place-based interactive encounters facilitating humans becoming co-invested in preserving industrial noise-free environments. Team members included Chris Harris and Sarah Friend.
Nature Data Union
Bringing people, data, and insights together to sustain nature and community development were the ideals behind this team’s proposed technology solution, with a focus on nature receiving tokens for the use of its data. Team members included Robin Lehmann and Mark Siebert.
Runners-Up
Recheck
This unit proposed technology that would enable and engage municipal residents in targeted rewilding and tree planting projects and analysis to improve air quality and reduce threats associated with this type of pollution. Team members included Jo Bronckers and Emiliyan Enev.
Centree
This duo proposed a solution to build a network of decentralized ecosystem commons to account for systemic living value, raise funding by selling living digital ecosystem twins, and fund land stewardship and regenerative businesses. Team members include Darren Zal, Shawn Anderson, and Brody Meyer.
Sattva (Curl Analytics)
This squad presented a technology platform allowing parks to generate and sell park-specific NFTs via artificial intelligence cameras and citizen contributions to generate revenue for the park’s flourishment. Team members include Aditya Karantha, Ishita Gupta, Prakhar Awasthi, Preetham Reddy, Dharini Raghavan, Pavithraa Satchithanantham, Ayush Kesari, and Harsha Vardhan G.
Public Land Protocol
With the goal to educate and engage citizens in environmental restoration projects, this team created a new app enabling stewards to earn benefits for completing specific environmental tasks, such as collecting data, planting trees, and tending to landscapes. Team members include Alex Anderson, Joe Nisbett, Katie Kazmi, Jolly Patel, Erin England, and Chris Fernandez.
Hyphal Network
This team proposed technology capable of creating an extensive map of soil conditions across global locations to understand land conditions better and provide greater insights on what measures need to be taken to improve soil quality. Team members included Daniel de Witte, Joana Peleira, and Tommie Nepstad.
Most Collaborative Teams
SNI’s partners at Odyssey Momentum generously offered to reward the top three “Most Collaborative” teams based on their support to other participating teams regarding technology access, knowledge sharing, and solution development. The selected teams for this category include:
IBMED
This duo proposed a project supporting biomemetic governance for decision-making and award processes based on a regenerative structure for the rebirth of nature. Team members included Marine Peguin and Coline Caillier.
A Wild Life
This team pitched a life coach app where wildlife mentors help people learn how to invest in themselves health-wise, live more in the present, and positively impact nature, with a portion of the proceeds going to NGOs focused on environmental preservation and restoration. Team members included Oliver Dauert and Maria Merola.
Hyphal Network
Please see the team description in the Runners Up section above.
Supporters
We’d like to thank our very generous supporters for their generous bounties that funded our hackathon and rewarded teams for their excellent efforts in creating technologies capable of breaking the cycle of human dominance over nature. Our supporters included:
- De Ceuvel
- Kusama Network
- Ocean Protocol
- Popcorn Network
- Unique Network
- KILT Protocol
- Odyssey Momentum
- HappyShip Design Studio
The Sovereign Nature team also owes incredible gratitude to our judges and advisors for their participation and support throughout the hackathon weekend. Our panel of 6 judges and 10+ advisors provided invaluable support to our hackathon teams in technological support, strategizing sessions, and feedback on the team’s narratives for their final pitches.
Judges
SNI’s panel of judges included:
- Andrea Leiter, SNI Co-Founder
- Trent McConaghy, Founder, Ocean Protocol
- Karl Burkart, Deputy Director, One Earth
- Catherine Bischoff, SNI CEO
- Danielle Bennett, Investor, BlueYard Capital
- Ed Hesse, SNI Co-Founder
Advisors
Advisors present throughout the hackathon included:
- Anke Wijnja, Nature Park Steward, De Ceuvel
- Vadim Smakhtin, Creative Technologist, Nature Cognita
- Filip Filipovic, Developer Relations Manager, Unique Network
- Alexander Saft, Technologist, Unique Network
- Sanjana Paul, Technical Associate, EarthHacks
- Annemarie Bloch, Freelance Strategist
- Jaclyn Bolt, Business Innovator, Wageningen University
- Timo Welde, Tech Lead, KILT Protocol
- Paul Pomerleau, Developer Relations, KILT Protocol
- Repke De Vries, Nature Park Steward, De Ceuvel
- Michael Mathres, Director, Fund Nature
What’s Next?
All participating teams have been invited to attend SNI’s first Experimental Zone Event at the De Ceuvel space in Amsterdam on May 21. There, technologies created throughout the hackathon will be displayed and presented to the public. Learn more about the event here.
Additionally, SNI will launch another hackathon challenge later this year, focused on the Global South. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, and subscribe to our mailing list to receive future updates. Finally, stay tuned for an upcoming blog series featuring each of the winning hackathon teams from this recent hackathon!
Thank you for following along with our Winter 2022 Hackathon Challenge on behalf of the Sovereign Nature Initiative team!
