Climate + Health Hackathon: Mutual Aid for Wildfire Evacuation

Can tech protect your health during wildfire evacuations? When disasters strike, urgent calls for shelter and aid get lost in scattered feeds. Join our one-day, in-person hackathon to build a real-time tool centralizing emergency requests for evacuees and responders.

Within the critical 48-to-72-hour window of sudden wildfire evacuations, traditional emergency support services often experience logistical bottlenecks that delay immediate support for local communities. During recent wildfire evacuations in Western Canada – from Summerland to Jasper to Buffalo Narrows to Creighton – thousands of displaced residents, tourists and responders flooded social media seeking urgent shelter, chronic care refills, medical aid and accessible transport. While nearby community members possessed an immense willingness to support through grassroots mutual aid with spare rooms, meals and supplies, vital health requests were scattered across dozens of uncoordinated feeds, so time-sensitive offers were missed, key resources were duplicated, and essential relief was delayed.

We are asking teams to consider how we might build a real-time data integration tool that aggregates and parses unstructured and fragmented health requests across all social channels into a single centralized matching relief dashboard, giving evacuees and community responders one definitive place to connect.

Eligibility

• ​Participants 18+
• ​Groups of 3-5 can register
• ​Individuals may also register

Why Participate?

• Gain knowledge on wildfire evacuations, climate change and public health.
• Beginner-friendly and open to all disciplines (public health, sociology, environmental science, tech and more).
• Access to pre-processed datasets, cloud and agentic tools, and on-site expert mentors.

A Special Thank You | ​We would like to thank Microsoft for providing us cloud storage space and on-site mentorship for our hackathon participants.

Interested in sponsoring prizes for winning teams?

Email us: ClimateHealthHub@ualberta.ca

This event is being organized by the Climate Change + Health Hub and the Office of the Vice President (International, Innovation + Enterprise).