We watch, as educators and parents, young people becoming increasingly detached, lonely, lack of direction and purpose, difficulties finding meaningful communities where they can belong. In high school learning becomes "prescribed" and the learners often become receivers instead of creators of their own learning.
Our Learning Hackathons are designed to build essential skills while boosting authentic dialogue, autonomous learning and meaningful action. We believe that young people must be included in solving community, societal, and planetary issues. Through local-to-global collaboration, we connect youth with like-minded peers around the world, helping them grow together in their mission to create a more peaceful, healthy, connected, and sustainable future.
We created the Learning Hackathons for developing skills, connection and creating real social impact projects together.
Our hackathon process begins with a pre-assessment and pre-learning phase to prepare participants. Challenges are sent out in advance, giving youth time to reflect and explore. We connect everyone through a shared digital hub (Slack/Drive) and form diverse hackathon teams. Throughout, we engage our local and global network to support collaboration, amplify ideas, and strengthen connections across borders.
The Learning Hackathons format can be adjusted from a day's hack sprint, to a weekend long event, to the starting point of a new project.
Here are a few examples:
-”Future of Education”:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4nLzqtjNqWWkRqEMiP51o0vh8K_xS05c, HETCH, Helsingborg, Sweden
-”Peacekeepers and GameChangers”, HETCH, Helsingborg, Sweden
-”Youth Well-Being”, HETCH, Helsingborg, Sweden
-”Co-creating the Local Society” with local politicians: ‘Tillsammansskapande’ - creating together. Acknowledged by the IB Festival of Hope : https://bit.ly/ibco-creation , Parken Innovation / Helsingborg Innovation District.
-”Prevention of Teenage Sexual Exploitation in the Digital World”, Online, Lima, Peru
-IKEA Agile Coaches: “Creating happy teams through applied neuroscience”, Sockerbruket IKEA; Helsingborg, Sweden
-”The Athlete’s Mindset for Educators”, International School of Helsingborg, Sweden, during covid 2021.
-”Building Future Skills and Mindsets to Co-Design Sustainable 21st Century Solutions”, H22 - The Helsingborg City Sustainability and Innovation Expo.
We’ve worked with forward-thinking schools and organizations from around the world, including Agora (Netherlands), Hammerbrooklyn (Germany), Vega Schools (India), School of Humanity, International School of Helsingborg (Sweden), Copenhagen International School (Denmark), Shaftesbury School (UK), and Coconut Thinking (Thailand), Helsingborg kommun/ Parken Innovation/Helsingborg Innovation District, The IB Festival of Hope, HETCH - Helsingborg Tech Hub, H22v City Expo, Thoren Business School, The NGO End Violence against Children/CHS Alternativo: Capital Humano y Social.
Our first hackathon was in collaboration with Learnlife and it funded by our city’s Visionsfund for educational innovation.
We've been invited to share our work on podcasts and education forums. Our goal is to build a “glocal” hub—a go-to space for youth entrepreneurship and global collaboration.
We’ve evolved our hackathon model to better reflect the challenges of today’s VUCA world, intentionally strengthening six key areas of youth development: cognitive, social-emotional, environmental, physical, digital, and spiritual. The experience now goes beyond problem-solving to nurture communication, collaboration, creativity, empathy, and a sense of purpose. We focus on wellbeing, identity, and connection to combat isolation and stress, while offering positive role models and opportunities to serve others. By integrating these dimensions, our hackathons help young people build resilience, belonging, and the mindset needed to thrive and lead in an uncertain world.
ahaacceleratingeducation@gmail.com
