A 24-hour hackathon will be hosted by Trinity today as Dublin participates in this year’s Climathon, a worldwide hackathon that brings students, entrepreneurs, technical experts, and app developers together to tackle climate challenges. 115 cities around the world will be participating in the event.
Climathon is dedicated to finding innovative solutions to climate challenges that are prevalent in the city. Dublin’s focus revolves around water management. Citizens, officials, and businesses will assemble in Trinity to create innovative solutions for Dublin’s transition to a Water Smart City with smarter urban water management.
Director of Trinity’s Centre for the Environment, Dr. Quentin Crowley, commented: “Transitioning to a Water Smart City is a crucial and important step for Dublin. Climathon presents the perfect opportunity for us to look at innovative ways to make this transition as seamless as possible, so it’s exciting to think about what teams might come up with.”
Climathon is organised by EIT Climate-KIC, the EU’s largest public-private partnership addressing climate change through innovation. Trinity is a member of EIT Climate-KIC with whom it has mapped policy interactions in the plastic recycling sector across Europe. Trinity and EIT Climate-KIC have also collaborated with projects such as the education programme Journey, and entrepreneurship programme, Greenhouse.
The event follows the publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) recent report, which limited global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and outlined consequences such as more extreme weather, longer and more frequent droughts and heatwaves, and a higher rate of sea level rise if this target is not met. It requires that carbon emissions fall by 45 percent by 2030 and reach “net zero” by 2050. Cities contribute over 70 per cent of global carbon emissions. CEO of EIT Climate-KIC, Kirsten Dunlop, said: “We have ten years to set radical changes in motion definitively across all sectors and, most crucially, in our own minds and everyday choices.”
More than 100 cities in 44 countries participated in Climathon last year, with a total reach of 33 million people.
