A challenge from Valletta’s mayor
Valletta has seen an unprecedented increase in commercial activity over the past twelve years. And there exists a direct correlation between economic growth and the amount of waste generated. This is why having an effective waste management plan for Valletta that improves and preserves the quality of life of its citizens and all those directly or indirectly linked to the city has become a very pressing concern.
This will be the challenge to solve during the forthcoming 2017 edition of the annual Climathon event due to be held on the 27th October at the Excelsior Hotel in Floriana.
Organised by Climate-KIC, this global 24-hour climate change hackathon will be held when citizens from around the world are again being invited to join the Climathon movement, to share ideas and proposals and try and find solutions to their respective cities’ climate challenges.
The event will be opened formally by Bertrand Van Ee, former global CEO of Climate-KIC who will make a keynote speech on Friday and will Chair the Valletta Jury on Saturday.
“Climathon brings together the challenges of the world’s cities with the people who have the passion and ability to solve them. Participants gather for 24 hours to engage in a climate-related problem solving workshop. Innovators and entrepreneurs around the world will get to take direct climate action in their own cities by coming up with innovative solutions to local climate change problems. This is what we will also be doing in Malta. In fact it was Valletta’s Mayor Alexiei Dingli who ‘challenged’ us by proposing Valletta’s waste management issue as the challenge to solve during the Malta Climathon,” says Edwin Ward, Chairman of Paragon Europe, the organisers of the Malta Climathon.
Now in its third year of operation, the Climathon movement has grown tremendously over the past two years, encouraging more innovators across the globe to drive climate action. Climathon has grown from 19 to 59 cities in the space of a year, operating across 6 continents, creating over 2330 ideas and reaching 16.8 million people worldwide in 2016.
The economic effect of Climathon is not to be dismissed either. Over 300 new companies and start-ups were formed thanks to ClimateKIC’s Climathon events over the past three years, 68 of them this year alone. In Malta, following last year’s event which invited individuals to submit their ideas for a more sustainable environment inside our capital city of Valletta, eight new Maltese start-ups have been chosen to benefit from a Climate-KIC grant of €25K to bring their ideas to fruition.
“Valletta is a unique city and this uniqueness means that its chal- lenges are also unique. During Climathon, everyone is welcome to attend where we will be tackling a number of important questions such as how to reduce municipal waste in innovative ways, how can we simplify the waste management process, how can Valletta’s residents implement better waste separation, how can education and technology help us improve the existing situation, what can people gain when they separate waste?
Climate-KIC’s Climathon will be bringing people who have the pas- sion and ability to solve such challenges. Participants will gather for 24 hours to engage in a climaterelated problem solving workshop. After a whole day of intense hours of collaboration, excitement and solution-finding, the best idea will be selected by a jury consisting of a number of professionals led by Mr Bertrand Van Ee.
Innovators and entrepreneurs around the world will get to take direct climate action in their own cities by coming up with innovative solutions to local climate change problems. If you have ideas to share, if you think you have a solution which could tackle this challenge and you’re interested to take part in the Climathon in Valletta, visit www.climathon.climatekic.org and sign up. Follow the Climathon on the 27th and 28th of October on social media via the #Climathon hashtag, and the Climathon channels www.twitter.com/globalclimathon and www.facebook.com/climathon