Global Hackathon case study
NEOM Innovation Challenge 2020
October 12th - November 16th, 2020
Overview:
NEOM is an accelerator of human progress. It’s a region in the northwest of Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea, a habitat being built from the ground up as a living laboratory, a place where entrepreneurship will chart the course for a new future. NEOM’s a destination for people who dream big and wish to be part of building a unique model for exceptional liveability, creating thriving businesses and reinventing environmental conservation.
Challenge:
NEOM sought out high school students to apply their creativity and out-of-the-box thinking to solve a range of challenges in the areas of food, education, energy, environment, water and health, well-being and biotech that are directly linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Solution:
The Global Exec. had combined all the ideas generated by the NEOM team and developed the NEOM Innovation Challenge 2020. Our team provided turnkey event management services that included technical solutions, global community outreach, and the recruitment of mentors, judges and speakers from Europe and the United States. We also procured and implemented inspirational webinars and panel discussions throughout the duration of the event.
The Global Exec. recruited approximately 100 high school students who were then divided into 20 teams. Participants worked together with mentors to generate ideas for new technologies that could be developed and implemented into infrastructure. The winning idea was generated by an all-girls team from Miss Porter’s School (US) for the food and agriculture sector. The idea was a mobile vertical farming solution that could be used either at home or at school. This further resulted in students gaining more understanding about NEOM’s vision and goals.
“It is an absolute pleasure to be part of every NEOM challenge, to meet the younger generations and understand how they will shape the future of this world. Most of them haven’t even finished high school and are on track to becoming fully-fledged innovators and leaders. Their open-mindedness keeps me open-minded, and I am glad to work alongside them. The more enlightened high school students, the better our future.“
Florin Cioaca - Mentor Co-founder and CEO at Traderion
