ISB Alumni Win Hackathon

Over the summer, while on break from their universities, a few International School Bangkok (ISB) alums found themselves reunited back in Thailand. With a summer ahead of them, they decided to enter into a Hackathon for college undergraduate students interested in entrepreneurship and technology, Hackathon U League For All 2022.

The event required teams to be affiliated with a university or school, and as our ISB Alumni all attend universities outside of Thailand, they decided to register under ISB calling themselves Minerva. Competing against 36 teams in total, each with three to five members, our ISB Alumni team took home the first-place prize for “Best Impact.”

Problem-Solving Through Digital Innovation

Marazal, Well, Jingmin, Emmy, and Jane - all from the ISB class of 2021 - spent two months working on the prompt for the hackathon before pitching their solution. “The prompt was to find a solution for vulnerable populations (e.g. visually impaired, elderly, etc.); either to enable them to have more equal access to technology or to use technology to help them in some way,” said Jane.

“We participated in two rounds of bootcamps over two weekends and worked on the project throughout. Our target group was the informal waste pickers in Thailand, also known as ‘Saleng’ or ซาเล้ง. The main idea of our pitch was a platform that connected people/recyclers to Saleng with a focus on providing information about location, type and quality of garbage to Saleng. This will help Saleng separate waste more easily and efficiently as they will have access to trash that has already gone through its first stage of separation.

Another ideal outcome is that it will increase Salengs' income as it will shorten their time to find quality garbage, as well as optimize routes and increase the quantity of garbage collected. Our solution also focused on extended producer responsibility (EPR) and the idea that companies' packaging could be tracked through Saleng,” said Jane.

Modeling Future Innovation

All of the ideas presented in the Hackathon represent a potential model for future projects that are innovative and have the potential to greatly impact and improve the lives of others. Projects such as Marazal, Well, Jingmin, Emmy, and Jane’s inspire creativity, care, and social intelligence when devising solutions to society’s problems. 

Their model could become a template or inspire new ideas in the field creating jobs, careers, and future innovations. Congratulations to our ISB Alumni on this incredible accomplishment and service to society. We are so proud to see your work recognized and we hope to see your ideas come to fruition, inspire others, and impact the lives of many.