Pasig City, Benilde team up for Climathon

The local government of Pasig City and the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB), through its Hub of Innovation for Inclusion (HiFi), has partnered up in an initiative that aims to address the looming issue on climate change.

The Climathon Pasig 2019 is the country’s first hackathon under the United Kingdombased non-government group Climate-KIC with Benilde HiFi as the organizer and Pasig as the city-enabler. It encourages both young and professional innovators from Pasig to put their skills and their knowledge at work to come up with their own climate-action solutions. The event is set on the Global Climathon Day on Oct. 25 and 26 at the Pasig Sports Center and will occur simultaneously in over 30 countries around the world.

This collaboration between public and private institutions was sealed in a signing of a memorandum of agreement held at the Office of the Mayor in Pasig City Hall and was graced by Pasig City Mayor Victor “Vico” Sotto, Benilde chancellor Robert Tang, Benilde HiFi director Abigail Mapua-Cabanilla, Benilde HiFi community management head Mark Antiqueno, and Pasig City administrator Atty. Jeron Manzareno.

Pasig, which ranked as the fifth most dense out of 1,634 cities in the Philippines considering its growing population and worsening traffic, is currently striving toward becoming a healthy and sustainable community that protects the environment amid economic growth.

Through the Climathon, Pasig aims to achieve two of its most crucial goals: sustainable waste reduction and the creation of productive mobility systems that increase inclusion and decrease pollution.

The hackathon, which will run for 24 hours, will give contenders ample time to conceptualize and create transformative innovations – may it be products, spaces, services or systems – that would help address the present issues.