European Citizens’ Hackathon Championship "EU Sparks"

What is EU Sparks for Climate: Citizen Hackathon Championship?

It is an initiative supported by the European Commission. Aligned with the European knowledge valorisation policy and the European Missions, in particular the Mission on Climate Neutral and Smart Cities and the Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change, its objective is to develop a virtual competition for the development of technological and social innovation solutions by teams of citizens and researchers to address climate challenges.

The Championship

It consists of three phases: local hackathons organized by 22 EU locations, followed by training modules and coaching activities for the winning teams of these local hackathons, culminating in an EU final where teams will compete to be one of the three winning teams.

Guided by facilitators, mentors, teachers and jury members, multidisciplinary teams will go through a series of workshops to develop and prototype their solutions adapted to specific challenges proposed by citizens. An Advisory Board will supervise the alignment and progression of the hackathons with the EU initiatives that underpin this program.

Who can participate?

All committed citizens willing to develop new solutions to climate challenges, as well as researchers willing to contribute with their knowledge, can participate. No previous experience in hackathons or idea competitions is required. EU Sparks for Climate is open to everyone.

The Challenges

For citizens to participate, the first step is to propose a challenge that concern the most, relevant to their community, city or region. In this way, through the competition they contribute to support the European Missions on Adaptation to Climate Change and Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities. 

1. Adaptation to Climate Change
   It aims to help regions become resistant and resilient to challenges such as droughts, heat waves and floods.
2. Climate Neutral and Smart Cities
   It aims to help cities and their citizens become climate neutral, keeping emissions low so as not to leave a footprint on the environment.
    

The process, awards and recognitions

There will be 22 local hackathons open to all EU citizens as well as citizens from the Associated Countries participating in the programme.

The teams will develop technological and social innovation solutions in the local hackathon, where the jury will select, for each solution, the two winning teams of this phase.

These 44 winning teams will receive a specific training and mentoring program to sharpen their skills with learning modules on management, entrepreneurship, sustainability, social impact, research valorization and intellectual property.

After the training and mentoring, the teams will participate in the EU final, where they will compete to be one of the three winning teams of the European Citizen Championship, who will receive cash prizes (5,000€ per team), personalized mentoring, support for a crowdfunding campaign, access to the angel investor network and support to scale up their solution.