Join us at the 2025 Seattle Climate Hackathon

 The Seattle Climate Hackathon brings together a diverse group—from students to experienced developers—for a multi-day challenge to develop innovative solutions to today’s climate problems, positioning Seattle as a leading hub for climate innovation.

• In-Person Only: Event held at 9Zero in Seattle.

• Free to Participate: No cost, removing barriers to entry. 

Register individually through our registration page . You will complete a short questionnaire to help us evaluate your skills and interests.

• Registration Deadline: April 23 (2 weeks before Hackathon) 

• No Late or On-Site Sign-ups Allowed.

Participants will form teams prior to the event. After your registration is confirmed:

• You’ll gain access to a matchmaking spreadsheet with teams looking for hackers, and hackers looking for teams.

• Join our dedicated Slack community for online matchmaking and collaboration.

• Attend the pre-hackathon networking event at 9Zero to finalize teams.

Recommended team size: 3–6 members (7 maximum.)

All technological tools, languages, frameworks, and cloud services are permitted. Use AI extensively to accelerate your project’s development. We’ll provide suggested toolkits and resources. 

• Slack Community: Coaches and mentors actively monitoring to support teams.
• On-Site Mentors: Experts available throughout the event for real-time assistance.
• Build a team that has what you need! If you know back-end but need a front-end coder, look for one in the matchmaking spreadsheet or Slack community. 

Projects must be submitted by noon, Friday, May 9, via link to online MVP or slide deck.

• Top 10 projects (based on submissions) present a 5-minute demo to judges.
• All other teams have an optional 1-minute flash demo opportunity.

Judging Criteria:

• Innovation & Problem Difficulty: Originality and creative problem-solving.
• Technical Execution: Functional quality and implementation.
• User Experience: Consideration of end-user needs and ease of use.
• Effort & Collaboration: Evidence of teamwork and pushing boundaries.

Detailed judging rubrics will be shared prior to the hackathon.

 Teams may be disqualified for:

• Presenting another’s work as their own without proper acknowledgment.
• Violating our event’s Code of Conduct (we will add link soon, and share with all attendees.) 

Exciting prizes will be announced soon, including potential categories such as “Best Student Project” and multiple innovation awards.

Volunteer & Sponsorship Opportunities

Support innovation by volunteering or sponsoring our event:

• Corporate Sponsors: Demonstrate climate leadership.
• Volunteers: Assist with logistics, mentorship/coaching, and participant support.

Fill this form to get involved as a volunteer, coach, or sponsor.

We have the following IP guidelines which we feel are common sense and aligned with maximizing the entrepreneurial potential of the event: 

• Intellectual Property (IP) developed during this hackathon remains solely owned by the participants who created it.
• Any pre-existing intellectual property brought into the event by participants remains their exclusive property.
• Participants may choose to license their projects as open source or keep them proprietary; both approaches are allowed.
• Hackathon organizers and sponsors retain the non-exclusive right to showcase or demo projects for promotional and judging purposes, always crediting the creators.
• Participants retain the right to further develop, commercialize, or monetize their projects after the hackathon.
• No transfer of IP ownership to organizers or sponsors will occur unless explicitly agreed upon separately.
• Prize-Related IP Agreements: In cases where specific prizes require unique IP arrangements (e.g., a company sponsored prize that requires open source / MIT licensing of all prize-eligible projects), participants will have the option to review and voluntarily sign a separate, explicit agreement outlining those terms. No prize like this has been announced yet, we will share details if there is one. 

Let us know if any of this seems wrong or would limit your participation. We want to encourage innovation, and don’t want IP issues to be a barrier for anyone to participate!