In Code We Trust - Responsible Innovation for a Flourishing Society

Build Software Solutions for Society's Biggest Issues in Climate, Fighting Disinformation, Digital Health, and Cybersecurity

You care about the functioning of our societies and have ideas how digital tools and applications can help improve it? You care about challenges connected to the environment, public and private health, cybersecurity or democratic practice? What issues need to be brought under control ASAP? And how apps or other digital tools can help in advancing these goals? Do you have answers to these questions? Then go ahead and be a part of our hackathon "In Code we Trust – Responsible Innovation for a Flourishing Society." Draft and create a software-based solution for society's biggest issues and upload it to the hackathon website.

You can hand in projects in the following topical fields:

1. Fighting Disinformation Challenge

Whether it is debates on the Covid-19 pandemic, democratic election processes in the US and elsewhere, or debates on climate change, they have one thing in common: Their well-functioning is jeopardized by the spread of disinformation in the media – in particular but not exclusively, in social media. Sparked by dubious media outlets, "Querdenker" deny the dangers of Covid-19 and lament the imposed restrictions. Others question that global warming is related to human behavior and can thus be reversed or at least slowed down.

While the digitization of the media may have opened up avenues for disinformation campaigns, it is also one of the most powerful allies in fighting it. For example, Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help detect bot campaigns or deep fakes. Digital tools can likewise promote media literacy, e.g. through learning applications or even through gaming.

In this challenge we ask you to build a software solution that tackles the challenges due to disinformation campaigns.

2. Environment and Climate Challenge

Two disruptive forces are shaping human destiny: global climate change and the digital revolution – and it is the latter that can avert the devastating impact of the former. Software solutions can be deployed to improve understanding on the Earth’s system, to minimize greenhouse gas emissions and form resilience to the climate crisis. Space sensing observation can be used to track deforestation e.g. in the Amazon River region. Smart grids can be developed to advance energy transition. The Internet of Things (IoT) and AI can be efficiently used to build smart warning systems against extreme weather events. From a corporate perspective, digitalization and technologies such as Blockchain or AI can be used to securely store and share real-time environmental data and thus give consumers as well as governments a credible impression of the company’s or its product's climate impact.

If you want to participate in this challenge, build a software solution that is productive in the context of climate and environmental protection.

3. Cybersecurity Challenge

Digitalization comes not only with great benefits – it also poses challenges on a diverse set of security infrastructures. On a personal level, your individual passwords for your email, banking, or social media accounts might get hacked and your digital identity used in criminal interactions. For businesses, the cost of a hacking attack may be fatal. And in nation-states cyberattacks can have devastating effects on the workings of political processes thus endangering the functioning of democratic governments. Accordingly, cybersecurity is of vital importance.

The task we are asking for in this challenge is how software solutions can help create a safe digital space either for individuals, businesses, or other stakeholders.

4. Digital Health Challenge

Build a software solution to an urgent health-related problem in our current health care system, in a specific medical space, or in the daily lives of individuals. Your solution could be an app targeting individuals' daily health-related behavior or an application that helps alleviate challenges to otherly abled people. It could be based on the Internet of Things and rely on networks of information that can be applied in conditions such as diabetes or in fields such as cardiology.

Be a part of this dynamic process and help to strengthen and foster our world!

We and our sponsors wish the prize money to be used productively for your future work as a coder or developer, for your prospective career, or for further developing the project you have handed in to this competition. Accordingly, we  ask the winners in each category for a short written statement on how they believe the prize money can help them for their careers.

€25,000 in prizes

• Quality of Idea
  Includes creativity, originality, and how innovative the idea is
• Implementation of the Idea
  Includes how well the idea was executed by the creators
• Social Impact
  Includes the extent to which the solution can help combat the global challenge you’re most passionate about and it’s future potential