Trusted Local and Global Partners
Nordic-American Hackathon with a Minnesotan Focus:
Nordic City Solutions and the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with Hack The Gap, are proud to present the Nordic-American Intercultural Development For Equitable Approaches (IDEA) Hackathon.
What is I.D.E.A Hackathon?
Nordic City Solutions and the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with Hack The Gap, are proud to present the Nordic-American Intercultural Development For Equitable Approaches (IDEA) Hackathon. This Hackathon is a 6-week experience where American and Nordic developers, experts and suppliers, with an intentional focus on local Minnesota businesses owned by BIPOC leaders (also known as minority business enterprises or MBEs), collaborate on problem-solving for some of the Twin Cities most unique urban development challenges; for real-world implementation within six - twelve months after the event. The event will take place October 13 - November 19, 2020.
About the Workshops
Kick-off Event – Nordic-American IDEA: Doing It Differently - Tuesday, October 13th
Holistic Design Workshop – Tuesday, October 20th
Week 2 - Holistic Design Workshop
This workshop will kick-off with thoughtful approaches to a holistic design process in the context of urban development. The content will dive into the following questions:
What key challenges does Holistic Design address?
Who is impacted and what needs to be taken into account?
How do we design solutions that consider the implications for the environment, social and business impacts?
Nordic examples of Holistic Design Thinking in urban development
American examples of Holistic Design Thinking in an urban development
For those participating in the hackathon challenges, teams will be focusing their follow-up collaboration on issues that are interconnected and will begin to develop holistic solutions to the challenge at hand.
Connectivity Workshop – Tuesday, October 27th
This workshop will focus on identifying the importance of connectivity in urban development projects and how that impacts businesses and the surrounding the community. Through understanding how both Nordic and U.S. practices and policies lead to systemic inequities, this workshop will encourage you to think broadly about these challenges and start to unravel some of their complexities.
What does connectivity mean and why is it important?
How does it impact a development?
For those participating in the hackathon, your team will define and refine the challenge in terms of connectivity and which aspects you will tackle within the context of existing systemic inequities.
Business case workshop - Tuesday, November 10th
The final workshop reimagines business design. This session will explore new models and methods of businesses that are ethical and progressive. You will learn how to create a business design that:
Makes a social impact
Creates value
Makes money
For those participating in the hackathon, you will communicate and define the value of your project in business terms. This will be an opportunity to pull together everything you have learned so far and discover a way to package the information so it can be pitched as a business plan.
What is the Nordic-American Intercultural Development For Equitable Approaches (IDEA) Hackathon?
IDEA is an initiative designed to foster collaboration, create relationships and identify innovation for how we develop land with equitable, resilient, cost efficient solutions. Our focus is on connecting American and Nordic developers and suppliers, with intentional emphasis on integrating local Minnesota businesses owned by BIPOC leaders and creating business opportunities for these firms to partner in the future.
Participation in IDEA will give Minnesota based businesses exposure to some of our region’s most significant development projects, interaction with local development decision makers and an immersion in Nordic resiliency land development approaches and solutions. There is an emphasis on companies and community stakeholders not normally at the table in land development projects. Specifically, IDEA is intended to help foster new business partnerships between local MBE firms and American and Nordic companies and increase MBE access to decision-makers in Twin Cities economic development.
Why sponsor the Nordic-American Solutions Hackathon?
Land development has its challenges. We believe through collaboration, more diverse stakeholders can participate in helping to find new solutions. The Hackathon will result in greater awareness and understanding of diverse stakeholders’ perspectives, the untapped assets in our community and allow for creation of mini-demonstrations of the possibilities of co-creation. In addition, we want to ensure MBE businesses have access to the programming and subsequent opportunities. Your sponsorship and support will help make this hackathon and its deliverables possible.
Sponsorships are currently open leading up to our October/November hackathon. Your support will:
Provide you the option to address the participants of the program. This gives a platform to our sponsors to spread your message and mission to audiences that may not be familiar with your programming.
Allow you to establish deep local and global relationships through a very broad range of development/construction industry stakeholders, both in the US and the Nordics.
Include you in the long-run value-additive benefits of the program. Your sponsorship helps cover the costs of a long-form paper that highlights the technical, process and people innovation exchanged during the Hackathon. This document of lessons learned, will also serve as a blueprint for other community members who are looking to do this type of work.
Help set the context for exploration of systemic change in land development with consideration of incorporation of these themes of inclusion, equity and integrated co-creation in future programs and projects.
Feature you as a sponsor in our promotion materials, throughout the program and on the long-form summary which will have lasting distribution.
Sponsorship Levels:
Builder Level: $2,500
Third tier logo placement included in our marketing materials and event website
Recognition in long-form summary distributed after the Hackathon
Connector Level: $5,000
Second-tier logo placement in our marketing materials and event website
Recognition in long-form summary distributed after the Hackathon
Access to challenge project of choice as a participant
Advocate Level: $7,500
First-tier logo placement in our marketing materials and event website
Recognition in long-form summary distributed after the Hackathon
Access to challenge projects of choice as a participant
