Small Innovators Taking on BIG Solutions for Climate With GenAI

Introducing the Hackathon team

Theta’s Emerging Tech Architect, Jim Taylor and Newlands Intermediate's Digital Design teacher, Marianne Malmstrom, led an exceptional team of young innovators aged 11 - 12 at the recent AI for the Environment Hackathon Festival. We’ve worked alongside Newlands for many years with Mixiply, so it’s great to be able to take on another project together.  This year the theme for all the fun was finding solutions to reduce environmental issues – and these kids knocked it out of the park!

Over the course of the week, each hackathon team pitched to a judging panel, and regional winners were announced across the nation for Auckland, Waikato, Christchurch, and Wellington. The teams were of all ages, so we were really proud to see the Newlands Intermediate team win second place for their idea and be selected to present at the 2024 Aotearoa Summit in Auckland!

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Combining GenAI with environmental solutions – what the Newlands Intermediate team created

The team came up with two environmental solutions – using mealworms to reduce plastic waste and gardening in unused urban spaces, like rooftops.  

To gain feedback and develop these ideas further, they created an AI-powered virtual panel of experts. This panel included an environmental scientist, funding specialist, education specialist, social media and communication expert, design thinking expert and tech innovator.

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Here’s an example of some of the feedback generated by the ‘environmental scientist’ about the mealworm project:

And here’s how it helped Rajbir, from the Newlands Intermediate team, to evolve the idea:

From here, the team of students were able to explore and communicate their ideas and assess their impact using Mixiply, our digital portfolio tool.

Jim Taylor reflects on the experience:

“It’s inspiring to work with the new generation of developers – we call them today’s Mini-Devs, and they are bringing some serious creativity and innovation to the table. I couldn’t be prouder of the team's efforts, even earning them a special shout-out from the judges.

It’s a different world our kids are growing up in. What a journey to be a part of!”

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And we’ll wrap that up here, with the Newlands Intermediate AI Hackathon mascot who now has pride of place in the Wellington office. Meet Billy Bot.