Last weekend, LT&C representatives were invited by our member N3XTCODER to participate in a Hackathon on “How can we use EU space data to develop a sustainable future for finance, insurance, and investments?” The event was designed for data scientists, financial services enthusiasts, crypto lovers, software developers, UX/UI designers, digital product professionals, and everybody who loves data and our planet. Eight teams were invited to develop innovative applications of space data for a sustainable financial services sector. They then competed for the best idea for such an application.
LT&C’s honorary president, Peter Prokosch, led a team of six experts, creating a concept for “30×30.club” – a platform for sustainable nature reserve tourism and decarbonisation investment to achieve the UN 30×30 biodiversity goal. The idea is based on the existing LT&C Examples of tourism supporting protected areas. The application helps tourists find and visit LT&C Example destinations and thereby finance projects, initiatives, or businesses leading to an increase in protected areas. Reaching out to the hundreds of millions of travellers visiting national parks and other protected areas and mainstreaming the idea of linking tourism and conservation should be of the essence.
After every team pitched their idea in a four-minute presentation on the second day of the hackathon, an expert jury ranked them on criteria such as relevance, innovation, and implementation potential. The LT&C-related team was proud to have achieved second place with the 30×30.club idea. The first prize went to the team “Fashion For Biodiversity” with their app for the fashion industry to make sure all the EU regulations are correctly followed by cotton or silk producers.
The second prize gives the 30×30.club team:
- €1,000 cash (some team members may donate their share to LT&C)
- €2,000 worth of hands-on product development support from the N3XTCODER team to bring our idea to real users: Strategy planning and expert consultation, UX/UI design support, and chief technology officer consulting.
This prize could mean the hackathon may have a meaningful and effective impact on the future development of LT&C.
