Hackathon EDF – Web3 For Carbon Neutrality
Earlier this month, two French Tech members, @Nil Larom and @Jesua Epequin, joined the hackathon organized by EDF China in cooperation with Impact Hub Shanghai, Orange and Tencent .
The goal was to explore how web3 technologies can contribute to #China ‘s #carbonneutrality target.
Picture of the coaches
Transforming China’s energy system and economy as a prevention to climate change requires increasing efforts. While energy firms are building the hardware of the next energy system, we need innovations to build the software supporting it. #Web3 combines the #metaverse with non-fungible tokens (#NFTs) and decentralized autonomous organizations (#DAOs) to provide the building blocks for a new model for the web in which the power lies with users rather than big tech companies.
A total of 22 teams applied to participate in this hackathon, mostly Chinese students from top universities around the world (Tsinghua University, Peking University, Yale University, and Imperial College London etc) and some early-stage startups also applied. Each team was guided through a design thinking process by experienced coaches. They conducted user interviews and prototyped and tested solutions. On the 3rd of July, @Nil Larom and @Jesua Epequin joined the event as mentors to provide insights about the results presented from the participating teams. In In the evening, each team pitched to a panel of leaders from the partner organizations.
The third prize was awarded to Concentree, which aims to become the Ant Forest of the web3 era, and to implement “Low carbon lifestyle to earn”.
Picture of the Jury members
The winner of the second prize was Food air drop. This team built a web3 platform that awards carbon credits for buying food which is approaching its expiration date.
Picture of the Teams
Finally, the winner was KnowCarbon, with a concept that provides an AIoT+SaaS carbon service platform for enterprises with a full set of carbon solutions.
This hackathon proved that China has an incredibly vibrant innovation ecosystem where exploring new concepts and technologies is fast going and simple. It also proved that there is a strong potential for web3 in the energy industry. La French Tech Beijing is proud to have joined the effort from EDF to explore new ways to achieve sustainability. The road to industrializing web3 for carbon neutrality will be long and complex.
Credits: Jesua Epequin (text), Dragos Cacio crelong.com & Hugo Menzer (editor), Alex Goncalves digital-space.cn (illustration).
