2019 Getting Started
A new effort is under way to design, plan, organize and execute the Collabathon 2020. This effort builds on the feedback from the 2019 Collabathon and strives widen the support basis, while keeping the process open and participatory.
The first 2019 Open Climate Collabathon was organized as a global event and a first attempt to gather collective intelligence around a common climate accounting and action mechanism solution. The event was intended to evolve and replicate; improving from best practices and incorporating new ideas in a decentralized way. Whilst the 2019 instance was organized by the Yale Openlab, it was designed so that other organizations can continue the momentum and organize its instances in 2020 and on wards.
The Open Climate Platform —underpinning the Collabathon— is an open source effort to leverage emerging digital technologies to create a digital hub and decentralized record keeping system acting as global common ground for climate pledges, action tracking, trading and finance, fundamentally linked to the state of planet Earth (i.e. temperature increase, resilience etc.). We are calling on all planetary stakeholders to participate in this by helping to develop the platform's core infrastructure and integrated platforms and Apps, by contribute code or data, develop thoughtware, creating community or onboarding partners.
The 2019 Collabathon instance was kicked off at events at several nodes across the globe during the weekend of November 15th - 17th. Teams worked on their prompts in a decentralized sprint and submitted their hacks for official award considerations until December 2nd. The Collabathon Environment was open and available throughout this time so new participants were able to sign up and join existing teams during the two week sprint. Teams and participants can still continue to work and submit work today, as part of the open source project, however.
The collaborative spirit of this project is based on fundamental values that ensure an open, inclusive and supportive environment. Please read our values and principles before participating.
The project is based on principles of radical inclusivity and equality at the planetary level. It is motivated by the belief that bottom-up civil action and collective intelligence is the most powerful innovation to address the climate challenge. Blockchain and digital technologies merely provide a tool to operationalize the social innovation of collaboration rather than competition as a paradigm for system change.
The project’s philosophy also holds that in addition to social inequalities (eg. in respect to gender, race and socioeconomic status), one of the most important inequalities this world’s generation needs to address is that between humans with nature; transcending a history of belief that humans are entitled to govern over the natural world, based on an illusion of separation and limitless extraction potential. Rather, we must awaken a clear consciousness that we are an intricate part of Earth, which represents our greater collective body.
Individual participants are expected to rely on their own resources to navigate through the event and overcome any challenge with creativity and good will. The event's organization team and partners have laid out common resources to help you in this process, and will aid whenever possible, but they are not available to address every single participant's questions and concerns. The organization team does not see participants as 'clients,' rather as peers working together on a common project. In fact, every participant is encouraged to take ownership of the event and step up as an organizer themselves whenever needed.
Particularly for the 2019 event, organization and collective coordination will not be perfect; be mindful of this and understand it is a first socially innovative proof-of-concept event. Use the digital environments provided to post questions to the community, respond with answers you know, and address problems directly by contributing directly to this wiki, github or any other means provided. Some prompts might have specific detailed approaches tasks, while others might require you to be creative and self-reliant, framing your own approach and creating your own tasks. Whenever possible, nurture the peer-to-peer community that is here to help each other and enable the individual to integrate their skills and purpose to the collective whole.
We are all stakeholders of this platform and the collabathon event, just as we are of the planet and its climate. No one really 'owns' planet Earth and its resources, and therefore no one should own the intellectual property of a common tool to help govern human's impacts on the climate system. As such, this project fundamentally puts forth the need for shifting from a mindset based on ownership to one based on stewardship.
Furthermore, the project values the open source culture and recognizes its power to invite and enable everyone to participate and integrate their ideas, suggestions and contributions to a common solution; please respect open source licenses (see 'Welcome' section for license information). Remember, different entities are working on pieces of the same puzzle that are ideally integrated into one decentralized 'platform of platforms' acting as a common ground of truth, and that the total is more than the sum of the parts when everyone nurtures the unifying 'glue' that integrates those individual pieces.
This event is not about competing to win an award. We do not incentivize participants by winning, but by collaborating with other individuals, creating a community and assembling teams to build parts of the solution together. Dare to detach from our constant need for competing and wining over others, and rather use that energy to attribute good actions of your peers, setting in motion an inertia that will replicate and come back to you in multiples. We need to leverage multiple talents, worldviews and fields of expertise to tackle the climate challenge together. We encourage participants of all skill levels and backgrounds to contribute their part and find a challenge they can tackle... anyone can join, contribute, or propose new prompts.