GenAI Hackathon for Climate Change Policy Advocacy

November 6-7, 2024 | Area 42, Rue des Palais 46, 1030 Brussels

Apply here

To leverage Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) to climate action and organisational challenges, the ECF is organising a GenAI for Climate Change Policy Advocacy Hackathon, bringing together climate change professionals and AI experts from across Europe.

The objective is to collectively uncover and design GenAI solutions to address the challenges below, and ultimately to address and accelerate climate action. We invite GenAI professionals to propose prototypes of products and services that will support our grantees in tackling four key climate action challenges.

At the end of the hackathon, a jury of ECF experts will select and fund the best solution for each challenge.

Disclaimer: Please note that space for this event is limited, so we ask you to apply by November 1st via the form below. We will review all applications to ensure a diverse range of expertise and we will confirm participation as soon as possible.

Challenge 1: Combatting misinformation and fake news

Vast amounts of misinformation on environmental issues are shared through mass media and are often amplified through social media.

How can we leverage AI to identify and classify misinformation and fake news on climate in mass media? While working with journalists and editors to deliver credible, reliable, and compelling coverage?

Challenge 2: Communications Strategy Calibration

Capacity limitations and unconscious biases are often an impediment to crafting effective communications towards specific audiences.

How might we use AI and public data sources to identify key stakeholder groups (e.g. small-scale food producers, small and medium-sized logistics companies) involved in a specific environmental topic? How can we use AI to cluster targets and aggregate data points to develop cohesive personas, as well as shape and test targeted narratives?

Challenge 3: Identifying Project-Relevant Metrics

Climate organisations need data sets that clearly show the measurable impact of their actions. This data is essential to demonstrating their effectiveness to their key audiences (including politicians, the press, funders, and other stakeholders), as well as identifying successful strategies. However, the availability of data varies greatly across across projects, and it can be very difficult to identify and define relevant KPIs.

How might we use AI to identify meaningful metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of a given project? How can we catalogue available data sources? How can we set data targets to help organisations allocate their efforts towards desired outcomes and make a tangible, demonstrable difference?

Challenge 4: Connecting expertise across the ecosystem

The ECF and its network of partners have a massive amount of experience in creating and executing projects. However, most of the relevant data is scattered across the ecosystem and often only exists in national languages.

How might we employ AI to create a cross-cutting knowledge management system? An approach that could identify data and reports across the ECF ecosystem that may contain best practices relevant to a particular project, and make them available through a simple interface? Or at least identify experts with pertinent experience?

Why leverage GenAI for climate action?

At the ECF, we work with over 700 organisations on various climate change actions. A lot of their work can be enhanced or accelerated with the help of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). GenAI tools have the potential to revolutionise the field by offering advanced data analysis, refining communication tactics, supporting evidence-based decision-making, and bolstering public engagement.

Who can attend?

The ECF GenAI Hackathon offers a unique opportunity for cross-sectorial participation to explore novel applications of GenAI for climate change policy advocacy and improving organisational efficiency.

You can attend individually or as a team (maximum 3 team members per organisation), but every team member needs to register individually.

We welcome:

ECF grantees from diverse backgrounds and disciplines across Europe: organisations and individuals working on various climate-related causes, such as renewable energy, just transitions, citizen engagement, clean transport, industrial transformation, financial system shifts, and land, food, and nature, among others.
AI Specialists & Technologists who can build real solutions to ECF’s challenges: Machine Learning engineers, data scientists, AI research scientists, AI Ethicists, AI product managers, AI consultants, Gen AI enthusiasts, deep learning engineers and of course business developers.

If you have a different background and aren’t sure if you should join, or whom of your colleagues to bring, just drop us a message.

How to register for the event?

Please fill out this form by November 1st to apply for the GenAI Hackathon. We will review all applications to ensure a diverse range of expertise and we will confirm participation as soon as possible.

If you’re planning to attend as a team, make sure every team member is registered individually.

What to expect? Your role during the event

On November 6 and 7, participants of the ECF GenAI Hackathon will work in small teams (combining AI experts and ECF grantees) to imagine, prototype, and pitch new ideas for tools and services.