START Hack 2025

START Hack 2025 was my second hackathon, held in St. Gallen, Switzerland. It’s Europe’s most entrepreneurial 36-hour hackathon, and if you’ve never done an hackathon, I highly recommend trying it at least once. It’s truly an unforgettable experience.

The challenge we chose focused on supporting the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) as part of their key initiative: the G20 Global Land Initiative. Our goal was to raise awareness about the severe environmental and socio-economic challenges faced by the Sahel region.

What We Built

We developed an interactive web app that:

• Collects and visualizes historical data: displays 20 years of data on precipitation, land cover, and population density in the Sahel.

• Integrates future projections using ML: provides forecasts for the next 10 years to highlight potential trends (using ARIMA).

• Offers interactive support: includes a chatbot powered by ChatGPT that answers user questions and helps navigate the data.

We built the app using Streamlit, ARIMA, Infomaniak and ChatGPT API for the chatbot.

In conclusion, I don’t think I’ve ever learned so much in such a short time. I was really proud of what we managed to create, even though we ultimately placed 4th out of 28 teams. One of the most valuable lessons I learned is surely how crucial the pitch is in an hackathon :)