Net Zero: Hack for Impact with Northern Powergrid

It's official! We're excited to announce that we'll be working with Northern Powergrid to host a full-day hackathon dedicated to all things net zero. The event will be held at our space here at Munro House, Leeds on 31st January 2024.

Northern Powergrid have an ambition to support our region to achieve its net zero pledge - and they’re pioneering in their approach. We’ll be bringing together our friends and sponsors, and other organisations from the energy sector including utilities, local authorities, universities, SMEs, innovators and more - and asking questions about how these organisations can collaborate and share data to support Northern England’s transition to net zero.

The aim is to find innovative solutions to some of the challenges facing the energy sector, in a competition to create the best open (or shared) data-driven prototype that solves a real challenge. A prize will be awarded to the team with the best data challenge and the best solution.

Through the event we aim to show people the value gleaned from sharing data and working in the open. We'll be asking for data donations that we will collate into a Data Catalogue for others to access, use and share, to demonstrate how sharing data removes barriers and speeds up progress - exactly what is needed if we are to meet our target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Teams will be invited to participate and data challenges explored in a Warm-Up Session on the 5th December - so if you are interested in taking part, get in touch as soon as possible to secure your place on a team! You can register by emailing hello@open-innovations.org or by signing up for the Warm-Up via Eventbrite. But don’t worry, if you don’t have a team then you can still take part on the day - just let us know and we’ll see you there.

Here’s the event hub page for more information. We’ll be adding docs, data and resources to this page in the build up to the event so be sure to check back.

This isn’t just an ordinary hackathon for us - it will be the last hackathon we’ll be hosting from Munro House, and so we’re taking the opportunity to celebrate everything that we have achieved over the last 10 years, and equally what’s to come. Read more in Paul’s blog post about the first 10 years of Open Innovations and what comes next.

And we couldn’t be happier to be celebrating with Northern Powergrid - they’ve been a sponsor with us for since 2019 and it is always a hugely rewarding partnership. They’ve been pioneering in their attitude towards open data, and now in their commitment to supporting and accelerating innovation for net zero. This is the first hackathon of its kind and we’re excited to see where the outputs will lead.

If you have any thoughts, questions or ideas then get involved! Either via email or Twitter @OpenInnovates. If you would like to share or suggest data to be added to the Catalogue, then please add links to the Data Sources doc on our hub page!