Event Spotlight — Earth Hacks @ University of Rochester
The Urban Infrastructure Hackathon was a 1-day virtual event hosted by the University of Rochester’s Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) chapter that not only focused on improving Rochester’s infrastructure, but also aimed at addressing the current urban infrastructure issues that the City has long been facing.
There were three challenge tracks:
- Decrease congestion and increase the space above ground
- Make the city more bike-friendly
- Mitigate or prevent nutrient runoff or increasing salinity in the Irondequoit bay.
All of the tracks had their inspiration in local projects — The first track was inspired by a successful local traffic makeover project called the Inner Loop. The second track was inspired by the city council’s efforts to promote cycling. The third track was inspired by concerns for the ecosystem in lake Ontario.
Through this hackathon, the University of Rochester’s ESW chapter was able to collaborate with various community organizations in Rochester including the 19th Ward Community Association, Impact Earth Rochester, Reconnect Rochester, and the University of Rochester’s Earth & Environmental Science department who mentored our attendees on all three challenge tracks. Their insight helped our participants devise relevant, effective, and actionable projects to address the three challenges.
The guest speakers included University of Illinois at Chicago’s Civil Engineering Professor Sybil Derrible who gave a lecture on sustainable infrastructure, and Erik Frisch from the Department of Environmental Services who spoke about a local highway makeover project.
The winners of the hackathon received free tickets to Engineers for a Sustainable World’s conference, ESWCon 21, made possible by the kind support of the Deupree Family Foundation.