The Hackathon is a race against time (usually a 36-hours event) which brings together a group of people from diverse backgrounds to work on producing a solutions to specific challenges. On February 7-8 the first Upscaling Hackathon was hosted by the Heschel Center and the Towns Association for Environmental Quality in Sakhnin. The challenge that was presented was a call for upscaling existing initiatives that have demonstrated sustainable solutions to common issues. Social and environmental entrepreneurs applied to participate and develop their initiatives as part of the event. The Heschel Fellows and alumni as well as the Galilee Fellows were among the participants who joined the groups that formed to partake in the Hackathon. Examples of the initiatives that were featured: establishing a financial tool for investment funds to show clients whether their money is invested in companies that have unethical practices; an initiative that promotes purchasing of rooftops solar panels in bulk; establishing an educational center for Forest Daycares, which are based in nature and in which children learn from the surrounding natural resources; a network of young people that creates communities, establishes a center for preserving the knowledge of old traditions; spreading the sustainable gardening in public spaces; building a website for online shopping that alerts buyers of unhealthy products and provides alternatives; establishing a group of community carpenters that design public spaces in collaboration with communities; building a facility to produce bio-charcoal in industrial production that solves the issue of trimmed foliage, fires and air pollution, and more. The judges were well-known media personalities Miki Haimovitch and Aviv Lavie, Limor Aluf, CEO of Kav Mashveh and attorney Baha Atmana Abu Rie. All initiatives enjoyed upscaling and four won marketing consulting and media exposure prizes (“The Network” – communities in Beer Sheva, Forest Daycares, BioChar technology, and Preserving traditional practices in the environmental context).
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