Hackathons are the way towards sustainable development
With the World Environment Day coming up soon, there are many Hackathons calling for solutions to the environment problems. Some of these ideas are so relevant towards current situation!
The concept of Hackathon was born out of the efforts of open source communities for finding solutions to problems. It used to be one or two day long. Since then we have come a long way. Today, there is at least one Hackathon happening every day around the world, and the internet has made it more accessible to participate in them virtually. The format has changed drastically as well. It is no longer limited to just technical, but encompasses creative ideas as well. The duration is also optimized to suit modern needs.
The first Hackathon was named OpenBSD in Calgary, Canada in 1999.
The outbreak of the pandemic COVID-19 has caused a lot of imbalance in not only our lives, but also the environment. During the lock down, the air quality and environment surely improved, but what happens when the world reopens? This question has been a prime point for environmentalists around the globe because putting so much pressure on environment in a single go at such a massive scale could be more dangerous than the situation before. We want to save the quality that we have now and preserve what the environment has recovered.
However, managing the reopening of world economy is obviously difficult. We would require plans for the future to manage the development in a way that balances out the pressure on the nature. This, in essence, is the concept of sustainable development. There could be plans to reopen things one after the other in a systematic manner, but we can’t disagree that without technology at our hands we can not achieve this goal. In this scenario Hackathons are proving to be a useful mean to solve the problem.
Hackerearth, a popular online platform for Hackathons has hosted Nature Hack for clean Air towards World Environment Day. This Hackathon is one of the most environment focused Hackathon I have seen in some time. The event does not limit the participation to business idea or some technical product. Rather it invites everyone who has ideas about saving the environment; technological, research, business model, anything as long as it talks about sustainable development.
DevPost too has been hosting similar Hackathons lately. I saw one project in Boston where a team made a web interface for people to connect with others having local compost pits around their area. Since waste collection was hindered due to COVID-19 in USA, this solution helped people in waste management as well as getting good compost for their gardens.
These solutions are just a handful of what I have mentioned. Hackathons like these are giving birth to millions of ideas at all levels. Some of the solutions are viable enough to incorporate within the company’s current way of operating, helping them to set and achieve their sustainability goals. It is a great way to systematically shift the seriousness of taking green technology and take it more seriously towards interests of humankind. Not to mention that this shift can cause new job opportunities for people in all fields, especially in India. This can actually result in a good business strategy too, increasing the revenue for a company. But scaling a business with sustainable technology is a different topic for another time. As of now, I think it is time that people start solving the major crisis of the world with their skills.
