Hosted by Project Humanities at Arizona State University, Hacks for Humanity is not just a hackathon—it’s a 36-hour innovation marathon. Participants from diverse backgrounds—including students, faculty, staff, and community members—come together to develop technical solutions that address pressing local and global challenges. By integrating the seven core principles of Humanity 101®—compassion, empathy, forgiveness, integrity, kindness, respect, and self-reflection—each project not only proposes a solution but also fosters personal growth and community understanding.
Our hackathon does more than spark innovation; it inspires action and builds lasting networks, empowering participants to use technology for societal change.
Hacks for Humanity welcomes everyone—from coders to artists, and students to retirees. By uniting diverse perspectives, we ensure groundbreaking solutions emerge every year.
Project Humanities Celebrates 12 Years of Hacking for Humanity
Project Humanities at Arizona State University held its 12th annual “Hacks for Humanity: Hacking for the Social Good” from October 10-12, bringing together 120 participants; including students, professionals, and retirees, for 36 hours of innovation. Teams of 7-8 members, drawn from diverse fields like engineering, business, and the arts collaborated to develop technologies addressing Nutrition and Wellbeing, Community Engagement, Misinformation/Disinformation. Each team’s project had to reflect at least 3 of these 7 Humanity 101® principles–compassion, empathy, forgiveness, integrity, kindness, respect and self-reflection. This year’s event, held at University Gateway Building on Mill Avenue, Tempe.
People live busy lives and have busy schedules. With inflation, high food prices, and food availability, how can people ensure that they can have access to nutritious foods and recipes? Also considering people experiencing homelessness, how can communities ensure anyone gets access to proper nutrition?
How do individuals empower communities to foster connection, participation, and local impact?
How do people understand and address the spread of misinformation and disinformation in an age of rapid digital communication? What counts as “truth” in contested spaces, and who gets to decide? How do power, platforms, and perception shape what people believe?
First Place
SkillLoop (Team 10)
Screens aren’t good teachers. People are good teachers, and the best way to learn a new skill is one-on-one, hands-on, with expert instruction. SkillLoop isn’t just another app but a way to escape apps, meet your neighbors, and develop real skills in real life. In addition, this will be a new platform for volunteering opportunities that will be marketed towards companies and organizations with volunteer programs as a new venue for community enrichment. Volunteer instructors can earn volunteer credit hours by offering free lessons to members of the community.
Second Place
momAI (Team 1)
According to a report by the Pew Research Center (2025), approximately 20% (one-fifth) of Americans report having an unhealthy diet (not too or not at all healthy). When deciding what to eat, taste is a high priority for the majority (83%), and home-cooked meals are more cost-effective than ordering takeout or eating at restaurants. momAI is a recipe customizer that serves as a nurturing AI “mom” providing personalized, culturally-diverse, healthy meal options and fosters an engaging community to keep users motivated on their wellness journey.
Third Place
Nourish (Team 12)
People struggle to afford healthy and nutritious food these days- our product aims to make healthy and affordable food more accessible by showing people where to buy groceries at the best prices nearby. Our solution is a community-powered/planning app that compares prices from different stores, shares local deals and coupons, and promotes sustainable shopping.
Team 2 | Zeenc
Our primary users are people who want to volunteer on their own terms—choosing cause, location, time, and using their specific skills. Nonprofits benefit by finding verified, reliable volunteers matched to clear role requirements and time windows. Secondary users include corporate CSR teams coordinating safe, skill-aligned group opportunities. The platform emphasizes accessibility for first-time volunteers and sustained engagement for experienced contributors.
Team 3 | FoodShare
Our team is trying to build a food bank management system. Which helps individuals with their dietary restrictions and reduce food waste. Helping investors find a food bank to fund by ranking food banks with the help of their mottos and their milestones, basically addressing the problems the food banks face.
Team 4 | Tether
Vulnerable populations-including young adults aging out of foster care, isolated single parents or families at risk, and employees facing personal challenges-lack accessible, trusted community connections that provide practical and emotional support during critical life moments, leading to higher rates of crisis, mental health challenges, and system involvement. Tether-Families for Everyone creates a human-verified, boundary-respectful community platform that matches families and individuals for mutual support, provides graduated engagement options for those who cannot pass traditional vetting, and offers on-demand family-like support for life milestones.
Team 5 | Block Stories
Block Stories is an augmented reality mobile app that preserves the disappearing histories of neighborhoods by allowing residents to “pin” memories, photos, and audio stories to real-world locations. Walking through a community becomes an immersive experience, you can hear the voices, see the images, and feel the stories of those who lived there before.
Team 6 | Community Connect
Our product seems to bring communities closer together in an era where neighbors feel like strangers. Loneliness is an epidemic in America and a leading cause of depression, our solution is a community management app that allows the community to pool funds into community projects and experiences.
Team 7 | Pallin
People who are new to a place or feeling isolated often struggle to find others to connect with personally. A platform that intelligently matches individuals based on shared interests, personality, and comfort levels can help them build meaningful one-on-one or small-group connections, promoting genuine social interaction and reducing loneliness.
Team 8 | Melting Pot
In a world that is increasingly dehumanizing immigrants, we will create an application that encourages human interaction and community engagement through food with an application called Melting Pot. Our vision is to meet, greet, eat, repeat.
Team 9 | BRIDGE
Many international students and scholars struggle to find meaningful ways of connecting with their globally-minded local communities. BRIDGE addresses this by providing a platform that connects them to nearby volunteering opportunities while fostering empathy and appreciation through guided reflection and recognition.
Team 11 | NourishWell
The problem is how do we get food donations into the hands of those who need it. Our solution is a service that streamlines the process directly connecting those who have food with those who need it, cutting down food waste.
Team 13 | Kare
Limited access to dependable assistance with daily activities and social interaction leaves many seniors vulnerable to loneliness and reduced quality of life.
Team 14 | Give and Take
Give and Take is a peer-to-peer food exchange platform with offline mesh networking that enables communities to swap food based on actual needs and preferences. This solution addresses food waste and food insecurity while ensuring resilience during emergencies and network outages
“Had an eye opening experience. Learnt a lot of things from the mentors. This is the first hackathon that showed me what mentoring really supposed be.”
“I love the fact that the hackathon does not heavily focus on the technical aspects of a solution.”
“Very welcoming for newcomers”
David Dilley is a director of the Ramsey Social Justice Foundation.The Ramsey Social Justice Foundation has a long history of supporting organizations dedicated to social justice, especially those working in marginalized and underrepresented communities worldwide.
As State Director of the Arizona Small Business Development Center Network, Janice C. Washington was a successful and innovative leader and developer of people and businesses. She held various leadership roles that included financial oversight, building small businesses and serving on state and national boards. Skilled in the application of critical thinking and analysis, she was successful in attaining key metrics and leading by example to bring together groups with diverse interests, skills, and influence to achieve a common goal. As former principal of J. C. Washington CPA, she provided income tax, accounting, audit, and review services combined with management of finance and administrative functions. Throughout her career, Janice prioritized focusing on the “Why”.
Dr. Loretta H. Cheeks is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) expert, research scholar, consultant, educator, and speaker. She is the founder of Strong TIES and DS Innovation. Throughout her career, she has helped organizations gain dynamic insights using computation and AI, serving private enterprises, governments, and nonprofits while advancing STEAM education globally.
Participants compete for team prizes of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place as well as individual awards such as People’s Choice awards
Participant Requirements:
Sponsor
Supporter
Inquire about sponsorship opportunities at [email protected]
Mentors use their expertise to help teams spark creativity, generate ideas, problem solve, and develop final presentations.
Mentor Requirements
Volunteers participate in the event as a close observer while assisting Project Humanities team with event logistics. They can be anyone interested in assisting the Project Humanities team in various event logistics.
Volunteer Requirements
– Sept 21, 2024
Over a decade ago, Ahwatukee professor Dr. Neal Lester had an idea:
If code-savvy professionals can get together to solve technical issues through a “hackathon,” why can’t people of all walks of life and ages get together to come up with working “hacks” that address a social problem.
Flash forward to 2024 and the Arizona State University Foundation Professor of English has produced an answer 10 years running: People with and without coding experience can indeed gather in small teams for a focused, concentrated period of time and produce attainable solutions to social problems… Read More
