Though no coding is involved, the Smith School of Business’ hackathon challenges students to make a difference.
On Jan. 27, roughly 100 students across Queen’s faculties will compete at the Smith Business Social Innovation Hackathon, creating a business solution for a social issue. A partnership between Queen’s and Experience Ventures, student participants will receive $325, with an additional prize of $2,000 awarded to the winners.
“It’s a wide mix of people and people [are] starting to get pretty stoked and excited. I think that energy is just going to carry over and I’m pretty pumped to see all the different presentations,” Matthew Hawksley, a program manager at the Centre for Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Social Impact at Smith Business said in an interview with The Journal.
Modelled off fast-paced programming competitions, or “hackathons,” this hackathon challenges students to solve a social issue related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals through business and marketing principles.
This year, hackathon participants will pitch solutions to help local farmers around Kingston get their produce into larger grocery chains such as Loblaws, in partnership with GreenReach Farms, a Kingston hydroponic farm seeking to localize Kingston’s food supply.
This weekend, competitors will design a pitch to help GreenReach Farms disrupt the way Kingston farms sell their crops.
Produce in larger grocery stores is often imported, despite it being available from local farms. Local farmers struggle to sell to large grocers, which often only buy from wholesalers and are want the ability to trace produce.
According to Hawksley, the hackathon is supporting a good cause, and its solutions can help everyone.
“If we could reduce the level of imports, lower the costs of goods to the consumer, help these local farmers thrive, we’ll be able to create a better circular economy and help Ontario and Canadian farmers to thrive in this type of environment,” Hawksley said.
Students compete in teams and will present their pitches to judges on Jan. 27 after working the whole day. For support, graduate students with pitching experience will mentor groups.
Having facilitated hackathons in previous years, Hawksley believes groups with good public speakers as well as analytical and creative mindsets will be the most successful.
“They’re going to need to think critically and logically, and then come up with specific solutions to the actual task,” he said.
Hawksley is most excited by the well-rounded teams formed with students from many different faculties. Opening this hackathon to other faculties allows the experiential learning to be accessible for all.
“With this hackathon, I think this format is just such a perfect way to bring forth new ideas in a fun way, and it’s helping the community, it’s helping the students, and it’s helping the university as a whole,” Hawksley said.
Tags
challenge, community, hackathon, Smith School of Business
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