Social Innovation Hackathon
What it is
A short, intensive co-creation sprint where mixed teams tackle a real social challenge alongside the people who live it. Following a design-thinking flow — understand, define, ideate, prototype — participants move from empathy to concrete, testable solutions in hours, not months.
It works best when a real challenge has real owners and potential users in the room, so ideas are tested against reality straight away.
When to use it
- You have a concrete challenge and partners or users willing to take part.
- You want tangible prototypes, not just discussion.
- You want to build empathy and collaboration across different backgrounds.
How to implement it
A design-thinking sprint: understand, define, ideate, then prototype and share.
- Empathise
Understand
Explore the challenge with the people who experience it — an empathy session, not a briefing.
You produce- Real insight into the challenge
- Focus
Define
In mixed teams, frame the specific problem worth solving.
You produce- A sharp problem statement per team
- Build
Ideate & prototype
Generate ideas fast, then build rough, testable prototypes.
You produce- Tangible prototypes to react to
- Test
Share & test
Present prototypes to the partners and users, and gather honest feedback.
You produce- Feedback and next steps for each idea
A fast way to turn a defined challenge into prototypes. It builds on exploration and feeds planning.
- Hack the City — to surface the challenge from lived space
- World Café — to define the challenge with a wider group
- Action & Sustainability Plans — to take a prototype forward
Hackathon Canvas
Use this canvas to plan a design-thinking sprint on a real social challenge, with the people who live it. Print it at A3, or fill it in together.
The challenge
The real social challenge — and who lives it.
Partners & users
Who takes part from the community, and in what role?
Teams
Mixed teams — who is in each, and who facilitates?
Understand
What did you learn from the empathy session?
Define
The specific problem each team will solve.
Ideas
The most promising ideas generated.
Prototype
What you will build to make each idea testable.
Feedback
What partners and users said about the prototypes.
Next steps
What happens to each idea after the sprint.
How to facilitate a session
A guide to running a social innovation hackathon that produces tested prototypes with — not just for — the community.
1 Prepare
- Invite mixed teams of students plus partners or users who live the challenge (about 5–15).
- Allow 3–4 hours, or a full day. Bring prototyping materials: paper, card, sticky notes, pens.
- Brief the partners on their role as experts-by-experience, not observers.
- Agree facilitators, timings, and how prototypes will be presented.
2 Run the session
- 20 minUnderstand — an empathy session with the partners about the real context.
- 25 minDefine — teams frame the specific problem worth solving.
- 30 minIdeate — generate many ideas fast; defer judgement.
- 40 minPrototype — build rough, testable versions of the best ideas.
- 25 minShare & test — present to partners and users; gather honest feedback.
- 10 minClose — agree what happens next for each prototype.
3 Follow up
- Document each prototype and the feedback it received.
- Share the results with participants and partners.
- Decide which ideas to develop, and hand them to an action plan.
- Thank the partners and invite feedback on the process.
4 Running it online
- Use a shared whiteboard for empathy notes, ideas and prototype sketches.
- Work in breakout rooms per team, with partners joining rooms for feedback.
- Keep energy up with tight timeboxes and quick check-ins.
- Prefer privacy-respecting tools, especially when discussing sensitive contexts.
Example of implementation from the Labs4Change project
University students worked alongside professionals from a municipal shelter for women survivors of gender-based violence to address two real challenges: preventing gender-based violence before women reach crisis situations, and supporting survivors in rebuilding long-term autonomy. Following a Design Thinking methodology, participants explored the shelter's context through an empathy session, then worked in multidisciplinary teams to define challenges, ideate and rapidly prototype. The workshop produced two tangible prototypes. The first was a digital prevention platform for young people, built around a questionnaire framed from the perspective of "your best friend" — helping users recognise warning signs in a friend's relationship and guiding them through assessment, safe support and a directory of specialised services. The second addressed survivors' economic independence through a multi-service women's cooperative combining shared education, catering, artisanal production, community gardening and financial and digital literacy training. Both ideas were presented to the shelter professionals, generating a valuable discussion on their practical applicability.
The method had high impact because participants developed two concrete solution proposals addressing the shelter's specific challenges. Success indicators: the number of prototypes or solution concepts created; the relevance and applicability of the proposed solutions to the shelter's real needs; feedback collected from both students and the shelter through evaluation questionnaires; and the continuation of collaboration between students and the organisation after the activity. The highest level of impact would be the shelter's ability to implement or adapt the proposed solutions.
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Resources & references
- Reference IDEO — Design Kit Free methods for the understand–ideate–prototype flow.