BetterStories at Hack The Globe 2024: Our Chief StoryTeller’s Experience

BetterStories ventured into an exciting collaboration this March with Global Spark, an education non-profit that aims to spark the next generation of leaders, ideas, and solutions to tackle the world’s most pressing challenges from cultural, social, and political lenses. From 16 March to 17 March, BetterStories Chief StoryTeller Minhaz Anwar actively participated in the ‘office hour’ mentoring sessions and was also bestowed the honour of being a first round judge at their flagship hackathon, Hack The Globe 2024.

Hack the Globe stands as the world's first multidisciplinary social impact hackathon, partnered with organisations such as BCG, Microsoft, Aon, Munk School, and Oxfam. Over the course of two weeks, students from across the globe brainstormed solutions for some of the most urgent development challenges, with a subsequent 48-hour window dedicated to developing their solutions and presentations.

Hack the Globe prioritises solutions, features, and practicality that allows students to narrow down onto the root of the challenges they are tackling in order to create a fully holistic and implementable solution. Winners are offered workshops and connections to incubators and startup accelerators to further develop their solutions.

In this year’s Hack The Globe, the three main themes for participants were economic empowerment, health and humanity, and sustainable infrastructure.?

As a first round judge, Minhaz’s responsibilities included mentoring participants during the office hours, reviewing their presentations, and scoring teams as per the judging criteria at the Toronto hub of the event. We sat down with him to get a deeper understanding of his experience in judging an international hackathon this year.?

Question: How was the hackathon experience in North America? What were the challenges you faced? Are the challenges different from what you’ve traditionally experienced in Bangladesh?

Minhaz: This has been a unique experience because it was truly global and teams were working across the time zone. For me it was really early morning and I had to keep myself awake until the Hackathon got started. But once the Hackathon started and I started talking with the teams, I felt very excited and I didn’t have to do anything else to keep me awake for the rest of the event. Moreover, teams coming from different backgrounds to solve critical problems were very familiar to me but this experience was somewhat unique to me because working with students and professionals from across the different time zones was something slightly new for me.

Question: Did you find anything different while judging the “Global Sparks” hackathon, compared to the hackathons in Bangladesh?

Minhaz: In terms of spirit I think it was almost the same because the Hackathons that we do in Bangladesh are something like this: we come together from different backgrounds. We look at the spectrum of the problems and then try to pinpoint one and create some prototypes. Then we try to build a good story around what we’re doing. So, I saw it’s frankly not very different, rather quite similar in nature.?

Question: What are your recommendations for developing innovative hackathons in the country?

Ans: I believe the teams, the people they matter. If there are a bunch of talented hackers that’s the ultimate and maybe some good coaches and mentors, and good jury makes it all the more interesting. However, it’s the people, the talent, the hackers themselves who makes all the difference. So, I would say making sure that it is very inclusive because I think what is now possible is that you don’t have to necessarily be located in one geographic location to hack together. If the Hacakthons in Bangladesh could truly become global in scope and inclusion. Then in terms of the presence of the teams, juries and mentors I think that will be a very useful learning journey.

Question: Global Sparks collaborated with BCG, Oxfam, and several other big names for this hackathon. How can we ensure cross-country collaboration and partnerships for such events?

Minhaz: I’m sure organisers have benefited hugely from the cross organisation support & partnership. They are not doing it for the first time, so I believe they will continue doing it.

Good partnerships are always rewarded by success and continued success leads to continued partnership.?

About Global Sparks:

Global Spark is run by a multidisciplinary team of over 70 young professionals and student leaders. Founded at the University of Toronto in 2017, the organisation has now grown to be a global community, with volunteers from all over the world.?

About Hack The Globe 2024:

Hack The Globe 2024 is the 6th iteration of the flagship event. Global Sparks held the event both online and offline, enabling more than 300 participants from 30 countries and 100+ institutions to participate and give their best. Teams were able to join in-person at the BCG Toronto and London hubs, as well as pitch their work online. More than 30 partner organisations, including BetterStories Limited, hosted office hours, workshops, and judging rounds. A senior judging panel was conducted, composed of senior officials from BCG, Unsinkable,? League of Innovators, Johnson & Johnson, and Microsoft.?

About the HTG 2024 Winners:

1st Place from Toronto: EcoTrack, a smart composter to turn food waste into compost while monitoring disposal & sorting behaviour.

2nd Place from Online: Ecolizer, a solution harnessing IoT technology to boost agricultural growth and resilience using real-time crop monitoring

3rd Place from London: Empact, a scalable AI chatbot designed to support teacher training in the Kakuma refugee camp