Event Spotlight: Cruz Hacks 2020

This blog is the first for 2020 in our event spotlight series, chronicling what happens at various Earth Hacks events and providing insight into the impact these events have and the metrics they produce. To get in touch with us or learn more, visit our website at earthhacks.io.

Earth Hacks kicked off 2020 by again supporting Cruz Hacks, which was the first integrated event we ever worked with as an organization. Cruz Hacks is unique in that it’s an incredibly popular hackathon with a huge following that also doubles as a nonprofit organization that focuses its events on impact, not just education.

Integrated events are one of the two hackathon support models Earth Hacks currently offers, the other being standalone. A standalone event is one that is a new event on a campus where an environmental hackathon, ideathon, or something similar did not exist before. These types of events are entirely dedicated to environmental innovation. An integrated event is where a portion of a pre-existing hackathon, ideathon, or something similar incorporates some of the themes and goals of earth hacks into their existing event, dedicating a portion of the event to environmental innovation.

This year, the three tracks Cruz Hacks focused on were:

Earth Hacks — which we all know and love: tackling environmental challenges through hackathons.

Health Hacks — apps, websites, and projects dedicated to expanding healthcare access to everyone through a variety of means. We also emphasize that this category isn’t strictly about physical health because mental is just as important!

Justice Hacks — this category hopes to support and shine a light on projects related to civil liberties and social justice. To truly make a space more diverse and accessible to all folks there must also be an emphasis on truly advocating for communities that are historically marginalized and oppressed.

The first place winner of the Earth Hacks track was a project called PollenPlanter. PollenPlanter is an app that lets the user choose which pollinators they would like to support in their garden, and will then generate a custom “pollinator profile” which includes native pollinator-friendly plants to include. Get more information on this project here.

You can view all of the Earth Hacks winners (and all the rest!) here, and follow Cruz Hacks on social media @cruzhacks to stay up to date on all their amazing accomplishments.