Take a hundred people motivated to do something about climate change, add scientists and business experts, give them 24 hours to brainstorm ideas about practical solutions, do that around the world and you have a Climathon.
Fifty nine cities recently hosted the 2016 Climathon, and in Wellington people were challenged to think about ways we could all meaningfully mitigate climate change at a local level. A number of ideas were workshopped, on topics ranging from recycling, to reusable public keep cups for takeaway coffees.
Wellington Climathon 2016 winners. Photo: RNZ / Alison Ballance
The overall winner was a project called Platypus, which aims to develop a simple carbon offsetting system, that allows people to offset the carbon cost of their cafe meal as they are buying it (the name is a riff on 'plate'). There were a number of winning projects that were variously matched with mentors, other companies or offered a place in Victoria University's entrepreneurial Bootcamp.
Two of last year's winners have been pitching their ideas overseas.
How will rising sea levels affect our cities? Photo: RNZ / Alison Ballance
