How can we make our cities sustainable and climate-friendly? At the 2020 Climathon on 13 & 14 November, innovative teams from 145 cities on six continents and in 56 countries will seek answers to this question. The HFT Stuttgart, together with the Stuttgart Region Economic Development Corporation (WRS), is also participating as a Challenge donor. The participation was initiated by the WRS as a partner of the transfer project M4_LAB, which is supported by the Bund-Länder-Initiative Innovative Hoc
With the professional commitment of the HFT researchers Dr. Dirk Pietruschka, head of the Center for Sustainable Energy Technology (zafh.net), and Prof. Dr. Tobias Popovic, professor at the HFT Stuttgart and expert in the field of Sustainable Finance & Investment, especially financing the energy turnaround & sustainable investments, the project M4_LAB declares the challenge:
How can citizens and companies become active participants in regional climate protection projects, even with small financial investments?
Climate protection needs committed and innovative minds. Everyone can take part in the Climathon: Researchers, teachers, students, creative people, entrepreneurs, political decision-makers, experts or committed citizens who are committed to climate protection and want to work together with others on local and innovative solutions. All interested parties can now register online to develop solutions, inspiring ideas and prototypes in innovative teams - in a virtual 24-hour hackathon that takes place simultaneously in seven German cities. Over a thousand participants from various disciplines and areas are expected to take part.
Within 24 hours, the teams work in idea sprints on concrete solutions for a specific challenge and are accompanied and supported by coaches and mentors. The jointly developed solutions are presented at the end of the Climathon in a pitch event. The aim is to develop solutions beyond the Climathon into a sustainable model and to transfer them into practice.
The digital event is organized by Impact Hub Germany (network of ICH Ruhr, Munich, Stuttgart, Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, Leipzig) and EIT Climate-KIC. The Impact Hub specializes in large-scale hackathons: In March 2020, the Impact Hub Berlin hosted the nationwide and highly regarded hackathon on the topic of the corona pandemic #WirvsVirus on behalf of the German government.