On June 8, the 2024 Youth Climate Action and Disaster Risk Reduction Hackathon final competition and award ceremony were successfully held at the Light Science and Technology Museum in Beijing. The 2024 Hackathon is jointly initiated by UNESCO Regional Office for East Asia, Integrated Research on Disaster Risk, Chinese National Committee for Man and the Biosphere Programme, UNESCO, International Centre on Space Technologies for Natural and Cultural Heritage of UNESCO, and Tsinghua University.

The event aimed to encourage young people both domestically and internationally to focus on climate change issues. Through a series of training sessions and team collaboration exercises, the initiative sought to unearth constructive and creative projects. It also aimed to explore the establishment of a global network for youth climate action, providing support and assistance to promising youth projects, and leveraging youthful innovation to advance global climate change initiatives.

Since the launch of the 2024 Youth Climate Action and Disaster Risk Reduction Hackathon on March 20, a series of activities have been carried out in three phases: climate change and disaster risk reduction public lectures, innovation and creative practices, and the innovative Hackathon. The project teams competed fiercely in three tracks: “Youth Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction Education and Action; Community-Led Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Development; and Innovative Technology and Natural Intelligence”.The participating teams are based in diverse fields, focused on real-world issues, approached challenges from different angles to gather wisdom and strength to propose innovative solutions, contributing youthful intelligence to address climate change and disaster reduction efforts. Ultimately, 18 teams advanced to the finals. 

On the afternoon of June 8th, the competition reached its ultimate showdown. Representatives of the organizers, Professor Qunli Han, Executive Director of Integrated Research of Disaster Risk (IRDR), Professor Shahbaz Khan, Director and Representative of UNESCO Regional Office for East Asia, Wei Qu, Director of the Global Competence Development Guidance Center for Students, and Professor Xinyuan Wang, Deputy Director of International Centre on Space Technologies for Natural and Cultural Heritage under the auspices of UNESCO (HIST) highly praised the successful organization of this event and acknowledged the achievements of young people in the fields of climate action and disaster reduction. The 2024 Youth Climate Action and Disaster Risk Reduction Hackathon concluded successfully with the concluding remarks from Dr. AI Sugiura, Programme Specialist, Natural Sciences, UNESCO Regional Office for East Asia.

Representatives of the organizers：Wei Qu, Shahbaz Khan, Qunli Han and Xinyuan Wang

IRDR will continue to support youth participation in global development and governance, promote its IRDR Young Scientists Programme, and provide support for the establishment and development of other youth networks.

Following deliberation by expert judges, the specific awards are as follows:

An detailed report in both Chinese and English will be compiled for open access by the organizers.