Two Sustainability Hackathons were organised to explore innovative, and evidence-based ways to address pressing sustainability and biodiversity challenges with specific focus on Belfast and Northern Ireland. At their core, two technical requirements: a responsible use of Generative AI and an evidence-based approach leveraging on open data. In total, more than 100 students got involved, whilst over 609 people took part to the public votes across both hackathons that saw two teams win the public vote award in each hackathon for their solutions: Belfast Buddy, a mobile app to promote active travel; Droplet, a game to educate users about water consumption.

The first hackathon took place in October 2024 and focused on the Belfast Agenda, encompassing housing-led regeneration, active travel, city centre redevelopment, and re-naturing urban spaces. Student teams collaboratively engaged in the ideation of possible solutions, creating videos and demos. The second hackathon tool place at the start of the second semester (January 2025); it expanded the geographic scope to Northern Ireland whilst narrowing in on water resource issues, inviting students to develop technical projects addressing flooding, pollution, and conservation.

Both hackathons emphasised real-world impact, encouraging participants to leverage technology, user-centred design, and local insights to develop practical approaches. Together, these hackathons were developed to promote inclusivity, whilst cultivating a dynamic learning environment that empowered students to tackle sustainability issues creatively and collaboratively. EEECS sustainability Hackathons received funding from the EPS faculty and OpenDataNI, and are led by Jonathan Browning and Stephen McKeever.

Publications & Resources

- Browning, J., McKeever, S., Ferrario, M.A., O'Neill, I. and Stewart, D., 2025, January. Creating sustainable solutions: An inclusive hackathon leveraging genAI in a local context. In The IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference, EDUCON 2025. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.