Climate-Sense Community Hackatons

Climate-Sense is the second chapter of an ongoing community heat-health campaign, following on from HeatAware SG: A study exploring indooar heat behaviours, knowledge, and exposure among seniors aged 50 and above.

Across four hackathon runs over four months, more than 80 community members, including youths, caregivers, delivery riders and community volunteers, came together to co-create affordable, practical, low-tech solutions for three heat-vulnerable groups: seniors, delivery riders, and children.

Before each hackathon began, a heat-health masterclass shared HeatAware SG's findings with participants, giving them a grounded, Singapore-specific understanding of urban heat before they picked up any materials.

From there, teams worked through the same process used throughout the playbook: Framing who they were designing for and where heat became a problem in that person's day, then brainstorming, before settling on an idea to build. Each team then had a single afternoon to prototype their solution using low-cost, easy-access materials such as tape, cooling gel packs, and cardboard, with AI-assisted vibe-coding tools joining the toolkit from Run 3 onwards. The day closed with teams pitching their prototype back to the group.