Announcing the Winners of the Second Annual BSR Sustainability Hackathon

November 4, 2014
Authors

Alicia Miller, MBA Candidate, NYU Stern School of Business; Intern, BSR

The 25 hackers who joined BSR’s second annual Sustainability Hackathon—which took place November 1 and 2—created 11 technology solutions for global challenges ranging from Ebola to sustainable agriculture. Judges selected three finalists who will compete for top prizes at the BSR Conference on Thursday, November 6: 

FoodE: a food exchange pod
Hackers: Mary Auriti, Sean Auriti, Yangbo Du, Sojourner Hardeman, and Wonjun Song
FoodE is a hardware and software system that reduces food waste by connecting extra food with people in need.

Incident Command Ecosystem (ICE): a crisis management system connecting responders to victims for improving efficiency and eliminating errors
Hackers: Filip Baba, Miguel Cabrera, and Linda Vincenti
ICE is a mobile application that provides important information about the victim to emergency responders.

RISE: an industrial waste marketplace
Hackers: Abin Abraham, Jessica Aguirre, Rafael Freaner, Martin Garcia, Bertha Jimenez, and Josh Luria
This application connects businesses that have industrial waste, such as spent grain from beer-making, with businesses that can use these products, such as cookie or granola bar manufacturers.

The hackathon opened on Saturday with remarks from BSR Advisory Services Manager Peter Nestor, hackathon consultant Eric Wu, and Rainforest Alliance Cofounder Daniel Katz. Daniel Katz spoke about how the Rainforest Alliance’s first event launched the entire movement and encouraged the hackers to think about their applications launching movements of their own. Hackers quickly formed teams and decided on their projects. Several hackers stayed all night, but the effects of working through the night could be seen as be-hoodied heads drooped toward keyboards as the day went on.

Applications went through the first round of judging on Sunday evening. The judges on were Sander Dolder, senior project manager at the New York City Economic Development Corporation; Elisabeth Best, government affairs analyst at Qualcomm Incorporated, and Melanie Janin, Managing Director of Communications at BSR.

These three teams will present on Thursday, November 6 at 8:30 a.m. ET. BSR Conference participants have the chance to vote on the winning team. If you can’t make it in person, we will also live steam the final presentations on the BSR Conference 2014 websiteThe BSR Sustainability Hackathon was sponsored by Qualcomm Incorporated.

Update, November 12, 2014: Following the onstage demonstration by the three Hackathon finalists, the BSR Conference audience; Emily Wheeler, director of NYU ACRE and Urban Future Lab; and Jennifer Arrowsmith, senior manager of global social responsibility at Qualcomm selected the winner of the BSR Sustainability Hackathon. We are pleased to announce that RISE came in first place, with a prize of US$4,000. ICE came in second, winning US$2,000, and Food-E came in third, winning US$1,000. Congratulations to our finalists!

Watch highlights from the Hackathon weekend above, and the BSR Conference 2014 demonstration below.

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