About the Environmental Hackathon

Amerikahaus hosted the second iteration of the In Code We Trust: Responsible Innovation for a Sustainable Future hackathon, which addressed the pressing issue of climate change and our responsibility to protect our planet and its environment. This year, Amerikahaus teamed up with Earth Hacks to take the annual hackathon to a new, transatlantic level, expanding it from Bavaria to the United States. The hackathon kicked off during Transatlantic Innovation week in April, culminating in a hackathon accelerator weekend June 25-26, 2022.

The hackathon’s goal was to encourage young professionals and students to think about how to collaboratively address various facets of climate change issues by harnessing their unique talents and skill sets. To support our participants in choosing a topic to tackle, we organized several talks and discussions for our virtual hackathon "Accelerator Weekend" at the end of June, with speakers from both Germany and the United States. Participants could then choose in which of the challenges "Reducing the Carbon Footprint", "Waste Management" or "Environmental Safety" they wanted to submit their project. On July 18, 2022, we held the virtual award ceremony.

Dr. Markus Faltermeier, one of the organizers of the In Code We Trust hackathon series by Amerikahaus, shared his takeaways on this year’s hackathon:

“What always fascinates me about our hackathons is how engaged and creative young people are. These complete strangers meet virtually in just one Zoom meeting, brainstorm about the issues in our current climate crisis that concern them most, and then simply form teams with people they feel have the same mindset. This was our second hackathon ever, our first in a transatlantic setting, and the first with our new partner Earth Hacks - and it turned out great. It is our younger generations around the world who will have to bear the burden of climate change in the future and are already doing so. Moreover, it is these young minds, as this hackathon has demonstrated once again, that are incredibly committed and passionate about helping to change and save the future of our societies and our environment - it's up to our older generations to support them in this undertaking in any way we can.”

The Jury

The projects submitted exceeded our expectations, which made judging a challenging task for our distinguished panel of high-ranking jurors of key executives from a variety of industries including education and tech: The Executive Director of the Bavarian Center for Transatlantic Relations (Amerikahaus München) Dr. Meike Zwingenberger and John Stubbs, Consul for Public Affairs from the U.S. General Consulate Munich; Dr. Susan Lindner, Head of Digitalization at Bayern Innovativ; Sophie Jonke, Head of ReDI School of Digital Integration Munich; Beate Neubauer from vbw Bayern; Liv Märtens from Youth Hacks, and Andreas Schwaiger, Head of Texas Instruments Germany.

The Winners 

1st  Place  “Rebatt”, by Yousuf Imam, Angela Anil, and Ali Osman. Project idea: Repurpose old rechargable batteries from consumer gadgets and giving them a second life. 

2nd  Place  “Pantrol”, by Carly Cohen, Max Gomes, Hannah Mathenge, and Larissa Poderoso. Project idea: To develop a platform to allow food to be sustainably managed along the supply chain.

3rd Place  “Eco-Footprint”, by Maximilian Miller, Kameron Rufener, Sheilly Mencias, and Sadia Jahan Rothi. Project idea: A website where people can discuss how they reduce their carbon footprint, guides and links to resources about reducing carbon footprint on different scales. Visit the Eco-Footprint website.

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all participants one more time, and thank them for all the effort and time they put into these remarkable projects!

The Partners

We would also like to say a big thank you to our partner Texas Instruments, who agreed to provide additional tech kits for each of our raffles that took place during the hackathon, as well as all the participants and judges, our partners from the DAZ (Deutsch-Amerikanisches Zentrum), German American Institute (d.a.i) Tübingen, Bayern Innovativ, ReDI School of Digital Integration,​​ The Munich Innovation Ecosystem, IBM and Jugend Hackt.

Thank you for supporting us in this hackathon and for your efforts into evaluating these projects and supporting them!


Photo: © Amerikahaus München