Dr. Manoj Ravi, with the support of colleagues and students, reflects on the outcomes of a hackathon between students from the University of Leeds and NTU Singapore which explored solutions to sustainability challenges as well as fostering interdisciplinary and intercultural collaboration.
Experiential learning is vital for preparing engineers to tackle sustainability challenges that cannot be solved in isolation. By enabling engineering students to work in intercultural and interdisciplinary settings, we foster systems thinking skills, where working alongside peers from diverse disciplines help further understand the interconnections between the social, environmental, and economic dimensions of sustainability. Such collaboration reflects the reality that sustainable solutions must also bridge cultural perspectives across countries and local communities, emphasising the collaborative mindset and skills required to design solutions that are globally relevant, equitable and impactful.
How was it done?
Drawing inspiration from this idea, the University of Leeds (UoL) and Nanyang Technological University Singapore (NTU Singapore) organised a year-long student sustainability hackathon. We brought together 10 student teams, each with four members — two from UoL and two from NTU Singapore. The students were first- and second-year undergraduates, working in interdisciplinary groups that combined chemical engineering, bioengineering, and environmental sciences. They were asked to address open-ended problem statements focused on two critical themes for the context of Singapore and Leeds: sustainable transportation and retrofitting. Each problem statement was mapped onto the UN Sustainable Development Goals, ensuring the work aligns with global sustainability priorities while giving students experience in addressing real-world challenges.
The student-led solutions to these global challenges were developed in two phases. Phase 1 was the ideation or conceptualisation stage where students used system and design thinking approaches to brainstorm potential solutions through a mix of asynchronous (individual reflection and analytical thinking) and synchronous activities (online meetings, group brainstorming and planning). Each group then presented their ideas as elevator pitches to receive feedback from staff at both universities. In the second phase, students moved onto validating their idea and prototyping. The objective of this phase was for students to move from ‘an idea on paper’ to produce something more tangible by demonstrating feasibility in multiple dimensions including technical feasibility, economic viability and regulatory alignment. This challenged students to confront issues that might not have been envisioned during the ideation phase often requiring multiple iterations. Each group had flexibility in terms of how they wanted to present their final hackathon output. The solutions proposed included smart, low-cost retrofitting strategies such as LED lighting, daylight harvesting and motion sensors, alongside more experimental approaches involving recycled materials, including food waste-derived phase change materials and repurposed plastic panels. In all these cases, teams considered the applicability of their solutions from a socio-cultural lens reconciling differences in subsidy structures, urban densities, infrastructure constraints and public behaviour across the two countries. This necessitated students to think of sustainable solutions that bridge cultural perspectives across countries and local communities.
Student reflections
“My biggest learnings through the hackathon have been the extent to which the feasibility of an environmental solution being implemented is dependent on various local and national regulations, as well as how the economic sustainability (and hence scalability) of these solutions can differ in different locations depending on the focus of regional environmental subsidies. I should benefit from these learnings in the future in terms of being more acutely aware of how to design a change to a chemical plant, for example, in a legal and economically sustainable way.” – UoL Chemical Engineering Student
“I signed up for this hackathon because I wanted to push myself beyond my comfort zone and explore how far my creativity could take me in an open-ended environment. I have always enjoyed brainstorming ideas and thinking of alternative ways to solve problems, and this hackathon felt like a good opportunity to challenge myself to innovate in areas I was less familiar with. Reflecting on the experience, my biggest learning was understanding how important it is to balance creativity with feasibility. I learned that good ideas need to be refined, prioritised, and supported by clear reasoning in order to be impactful. Working closely with my team also taught me how to adapt quickly, manage differing viewpoints, and stay focused on the core problem despite constraints. These learnings will benefit me in the future by helping me approach complex problems more confidently, collaborate effectively across disciplines, and develop solutions that are not only innovative but also realistic and meaningful projects.” – NTU Singapore Chemical and Bioengineering student
“My thinking changed in two ways. First, brainstorming became more disciplined. Instead of chasing the most exciting idea, we compared options and asked early questions: what problem does this solve, what assumptions are we making, what would fail first, and what evidence would be needed to support it. This helped reduce ambition into something more realistic. Second, I became more focused on feasibility. Over time, I shifted from “this sounds strong/interesting” to “what is the first thing that proves this can work?”, and “what would fail first?” That meant focusing on clear steps, constraints, and what would be required for real approval and real use.” – UoL Geology student
Staff reflections
As staff involved in the design and delivery of this hackathon, we believe this international collaboration creates new pathways for collaborative curriculum development and empowering students to engage deeply with the complexity of global climate challenges. One of our key reflections from this hackathon is that challenge-based learning offers a truly unique environment for students to develop sustainability competencies. It allows for an authentic and holistic consideration of sustainability whereby core disciplinary knowledge is grounded in socio-cultural, economic, policy and environmental considerations.
We also observe that resilience and commitment are crucial for students to successfully engage in this exercise. Working across largely different time zones with fellow students who bring in different perspectives and skills requires a strong degree of commitment and being resilient in the face of challenges. Students who engaged in the hackathon also commented on how they had to pivot on ideas and make assumptions when faced with inadequate information or uncertainties in data. These are all vital skills for future engineers to thrive in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world.
In future iterations, we aspire to focus on strengthening industry engagement and developing more structured mechanisms for evaluating student learning by embedding the activity within the programme or a module of study. More broadly, this work invites educators to consider how collaborative online international learning (COIL) might be adapted within their own institutional settings to better prepare students for the complexities of global engineering practice.
Authors
- Dr Manoj Ravi, School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds
- Dr Vasiliki Kioupi, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds
- Ericka Lionny, School of Chemistry, Chemical and Bioengineering, NTU Singapore
- Samuel Edwards, School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds
- Abdulbari S Binafif, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds
Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.
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