SFU team places 2nd at first NATO Policy Hackathon

Solutions to how countries can mitigate the security risks of climate change have earned SFU students international recognition at the inaugural NATO policy hackathon.

On Feb. 4, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) launched its NATO 2030 Policy Hackathon. The week-long event showcased the talents and efforts of student teams from across North America and Europe as they competed to create new and innovative policies to solve NATO’s most pressing problems. The teams represented schools such as Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, Sciences Po, King’s College London, and our own Simon Fraser University.

During the challenge, the SFU team was tasked with how to build NATO’s resilience against the security implications of climate change. They responded by generating inventive and novel policy suggestions, ranging from new methods of environmental data collection, including a crowdsourced early warning disaster response system to Augmented Reality (AR) disaster response training.

All of SFU’s team members are NATO Field School and Simulation Program alumni. Therefore, the team had an excellent understanding of NATO’s organizational structure and mandate, which certainly helped their event performance.

The competition concluded at the New Ideas for NATO event on Feb. 4, where the university teams presented their ideas to an expert jury panel. Ultimately, the panel awarded the SFU team the win in their category, Reducing Military Carbon Emissions, and second place in the overall competition, tied with Harvard University.

SFU’s invitation in this new and prestigious competition shows the recognition that the NATO Field School and Simulation Program is receiving from all around the NATO Alliance, and the team’s strong performance proves this recognition is well-earned.

Applications for this year’s Virtual NATO Field School and Simulation Program are open now until March 15^th, 2021.