EWB-SWE and openhack’s Advisory Board met with representatives of both organizations on October 4 to take stock of the organization’s progress over the last year and discuss opportunities to improve our fundraising activities. This was the third meeting of the Advisory Board which was put together in 2020.
The Advisory Board consists of Hans-Olov Olsson, Emma Rozada, Sofia Apelgren, Joakim Hedin, Carl Lindberg, Johanna Lakso. From EWB-SWE and openhack, Jan Burenius, Caroline Bastholm, Jan Byfors, Lukas Scheffer Leander participated in the meeting held at Techno Creatives’ office in Gothenburg – a huge thank you to Emma Rozada for hosting us.
How can we better support the implementation of solutions from hackathons?
Many motivated and highly skilled individuals have come up with remarcable innovative ideas for how to solve diverse humanitarian challenges during the hackathons we have hosted in the past. While some of these ideas have been realized, too many have never made it past the drawing board.
One central topic discussed at the meeting was how openhack can work with partners to become better at supporting people who are part of our hackathons to further develop their solutions after the end of the event. The issue is now high on our agenda and we will continue to explore possible approaches and collaborations when we meet for the openhack board’s working weekend in Gothenburg on November 6-7, 2021.
Openhack’s next hackathon is Engineering for Humanity, which we organize together with Engineers Without Borders Sweden. During this hackathon, participants will work to find solutions to real-world problems derived from ongoing projects by the national Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and German Engineers Without Borders organizations. For this event, we aim to provide monetary funds to the teams behind the winning solutions and support the collaboration between these teams and the Engineers Without Borders organization that provided the case that the solution aims to solve.
Partner with openhack
Another topic discussed during the advisory board meeting was how openhack can establish new long-term partnerships and find other ways to secure continuous funding. Among other things, we explored the possibility of joining an incubator or hosting a fundraising focused event.
We are beyond grateful to our main partners Sandvik and Ramboll. To be able to establish a more long-term vision for openhack, we do, however, need to secure additional long-term partnerships. If you are interested in partnering with openhack or have any questions about what it means to partner with our organization, please drop us an email at hello@openhack.io.