382 | Inside New Mexico's First Climate Hackathon with Paul Zelizer
What if building climate solutions could unite a diverse community—and produce real, working prototypes—in just 30 hours?
Paul Zelizer is the host of Awarepreneurs, the world’s longest running social entrepreneur podcast, the co-founder of NM Tech Talks, the co-founder of NMClimate and a business coach/consultant for social entrepreneurs and cleantech startups for the past 18 years.
This episode is sponsored by the coaching company of the host, Paul Zelizer. Consider a Strategy Session if you can use support growing your impact business.
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
Transcript of Inside New Mexico's First Climate Hackathon with Paul Zelizer
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Key Takeaways in Inside New Mexico's First Climate Hackathon with Paul Zelizer
Mission-Driven Collaboration Attracts Dedication and Diversity:
Impact-focused hackathons, especially around climate, naturally draw a passionate and diverse group of participants—ranging from seasoned founders to students—and foster collaboration over competition.
"We had developers, designers, founders, students with a full range. Some people who were very, very early on in their tech career and in their tech journey, and some who had building things for decades...the sense of the room is like even if somebody was on a different team and you could help them...there was a lot less friction than a lot of other human interactions under pressure. It was a mission-driven community and you could feel it." (Paul Zelizer, 00:03:37 - 00:04:13)
Mentor-Led Iteration Drives High-Quality Outcomes:
One key strength of Desert Dev Lab lay in its engaged, volunteer mentors from various sectors. Their kindness and expertise enabled teams to quickly refine, iterate, and polish their prototypes far beyond expectations.
"The mentors were incredibly knowledgeable, very busy people. But again, because of the focus, the impact and the building of community, in this way, we were talking about tech for good...The mentors were incredibly generous with their time, their knowledge kind, but direct in their feedback. And this kind of knowledge base and mentorship allowed the teams to quickly refine their ideas and iterate and get to something that they really liked and that was amazingly polished." (Paul Zelizer, 00:05:41 - 00:06:19)
Rapid Prototyping Results in Practical, Real-World Solutions:
Given only 30 hours, the teams delivered innovative, working solutions to climate challenges—demonstrating both technical skill and a deep understanding of end-user needs.
"8 out of the 10 teams shipped a live prototype that worked almost flawlessly...the level of polish and the actual usefulness of what they came up with was amazing. For instance, some of the solutions focused on lowering energy usage for AI queries...climate emergency alert for non English speakers...reducing methane in landfills from food waste in a very innovative way." (Paul Zelizer, 00:08:04 - 00:09:07)