“When Economies Turn Down, Entrepreneurs Turn Up”: Global Hackathon Offers €195,000 Prize Pool

Linda Rottenberg, co-founder and CEO of Endeavor, comments on the potential of entrepreneurs to pick up where traditional systems falter: the essence of a new global hackathon aiming to “hack the future and never go through this again.”

The Global Hack, a massive online hackathon, is receiving applications until April 10th and will run until April 12th. The global tech community is coming together to support 200,000 business leaders, innovators, designers, scientists, tech enthusiasts and marketers to rapidly develop thousands of ideas and solutions to the current crisis, as well as build resilience post-pandemic.

“We will have to face a great number of challenges during and in the aftermath of the viral pandemic. Our resilience is being tested,” reads the hackathon’s mission. “Health systems, transportation, logistics, mobility services, food security, governmental services are jeopardised. We face millions of challenges, today, tomorrow and many months from now.”

With 12 tracks - including Solidarity in Action, Work, Environment, Education, Crisis Response, Economy and Arts & Creativity - each with a track lead and dedicated mentors, teams are eligible to win from a prize pool of €195,000 and counting, as the pool grows with more international support.

What started as a scale-up of an earlier hackathon organised by a group of Estonian startups and accelerators (Garage48, Accelerate Estonia, Guaana and Mooncascade) quickly snowballed to draw in some of the world’s biggest names in tech, entrepreneurship, health, and development.

Mentors and leads include Princess Khaliya Aga Khan, Brad Feld (co-founder of TechStars), Achim Steiner (Administrator of UNDP), Italian astronaut Samantha Cristofretti, actress and activist Sophia Bush; global investor and entrepreneur Christopher Schroeder, Reid Hoffman (co-founder of LinkedIn) and Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI and former president of Y Combinator).

Regional names include Dr. Noah Raford, Futurist-in-Chief at Dubai Future Foundation; Nike ambassador and marathoner Manal Rostom; and Mona Hamdy, Director of Harvard Arab COVID Response fund.

“This is a chance to give a voice to the younger generation to innovate and try to get creative in these very difficult times,” says Manal Rostom, Inspirational Lead for the Health & Wellness track. “You’re either going to sink or swim. This is a time to switch on your creative mind, get innovative, and put your idea into action, get it executed ASAP.”

“If we have seen one thing from the pandemic,” says Mona Hamdy, Inspirational Lead for the Economy track, “it's that we have very convincing proof that we are connected to one another, and interconnected to the other species that make up life on our planet.”

“HRH the Crown Prince of Norway just spoke at the opening of our Global Hack event, calling on people to see potential and do new things in new ways, in line with the SDGs,” continues Hamdy. “To me, that is very special. Because I believe we will create new economic incentives that bring about these positive changes, without bringing our nations to economic ruin when this happens again.”

You can watch the hackathon live at the Global Hack’s Facebook and Youtube pages.