This is the second edition of the Humanitarian Hackathon. Last year edition, organised by ReDI School was focusing on solving problems for refugees around the world in partnership with Norwegian Refugees Council.
This year, WWF is bringing challenges they are facing around environmental protection. Let's hack during an entire week-end solution to help and solves problems and will have a real impact for our planet.
The event is open to everyone, Developers, Engineers, Designers, Product owners and Entrepreneurs. Join us, pitch your idea and hack together!
The solutions will be supported and implemented with WWF.
With an alarming 81% decline in freshwater species abundance since 1970, millions of people at risk from water scarcity and pollution, and billions of dollars being lost by investors and companies from water risks, the need for action on water has never been greater. We are now collectively in a critical period in which the world needs companies, who both impact and are dependent upon freshwater, to step up and help solve the challenges facing both people and the planet through water stewardship.
Water stewardship remains a critical concept for companies and investors to embrace and implement, but one that is at a crossroads. To improve effectiveness, we must now journey down the road at greater speed and scale than ever before with the early adopters helping to mobilize the majority.
The proposed challenges seek to provide WWF with more knowledge and improve our ability to continue engaging corporates through water stewardship and collective action.Â
Challenge #1:Â Textile Industry Tracking
The textile industry uses a vast amount of water throughout the dyeing and finishing processes and is among the largest consumers of water among all industries. Moreover, the textile industry also draws attention with its high consumption of chemical substances applied into different processes (pre-finishing, dyeing, finishing, sizing and others). Therefore, WWF has a long history of engagement with this sector.Â
For WWF to effectively approach this sector and promote global strategies for the sustainable management of water, a comprehensive global analysis is crucial. The main aim of challenge #1 is to map the global supply-chain of the textile industry and define a plan of action for WWF, which should include a cross-correlation between the mapped textile operations and the most vulnerable geographies in terms of water: water scarcity, pollution, important ecosystem services, threatened species, and any additional relevant (-water related) layer.
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Challenge #2:Â Water Risk Exposure
One of the most suitable angles for approaching corporates is to talk about water risks. Usually, water risks are calculated according to 3 different aspects: physical, regulatory and reputational. This approach provides companies and investors a complete overview of the multitude of aspects that might influence the risks that they face.
From the 3 categories, the reputational is the most challenging one, since there is little agreement and literature that covers the main aspects that affect a company’s reputation. Therefore the aim of challenge #2 is to propose a framework of (-water related) reputational risk exposure. Such framework might include existing approaches (i.e. media coverage, cultural importance of water and biodiversity richness) and/or aggregate innovative ways of informing corporates about their reputational risks due to their operations and locations.
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