Event Spotlight: TGP AGile Capstone Environmental Justice Hackathon

This blog is the sixth 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 outcomes they produce. To get in touch with us or learn more, visit our website at earthhacks.io.

Environmental justice is an absolutely essential part of every climate conversation, action, policy, and plan. Unfortunately, it is often left out, especially in the STEM space. Earth Hacks and our friends at The GREEN Program set out to take a step towards changing that with our collaborative hackathon — The GREEN Program Agile Capstone Environmental Justice Hackathon.

With attendees from over 20 countries representing 70 universities, we brought together motivated students and young professionals to learn more about the history and practice of environmental justice, understand their responsibility to integrate it into their work and studies in the STEM space, and learn about how civic engagement and public policy furthers environmental justice progress.

The hackathon took place over the weekend of September 12–13, and featured guests from amazing organizations such as Our Climate, the Post Landfill Action Network (PLAN), and Earth Guardians. Featured speakers include:

• Jasmine Sanders, executive director of Our Climate
• Amina Castronovo, field advisor at Our Climate
• Edil Sepulveda Carlo, Earth scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, environmental attorney, and social activist and organizer
• Dr. Stephen Fong, director of Integrative Life Sciences Education at Virginia Commonwealth University
• Ramiro Murguia, director of events at PLAN
• Leala Pourier, Marlow Baines, Marian Mejia, and Tony Soto of Earth Guardians

This has been one of the most widely attended Earth Hacks events to date, and the participant projects were extremely powerful. The winners from the event — “Team Super-Rad”, consisting of Rimsha Ahmed, Gergana Ivanova, Manisha Rattu, and Janice Wong — were awarded a scholarship to The GREEN Program’s online course, Ethics of Sustainable Development.

Check out the winning project and all the other incredible submissions below, and The GREEN Program’s recap page for session recordings, statistics, and student testimonials!

https://eventornado.com/event/tgp-agile-capstone-environmental-justice-hackathon

https://thegreenprogram.members-only.online/tgphackathon-envjustice-recap