Every day we wait, real problems compound — people falling through safety nets, cities straining under growth, communities losing ground on health, equity, and climate. Fixing that can’t wait for another conference or white paper — it takes the right people in the same room, building. That room is where we’ll be on September 17th: Impact Hub.
That’s when we’re teaming up with Impact Hub and the ML Ops Stockholm community for a full-throttle, one-day hackathon — with sprint challenges, prototyping, and a showcase where every team pitches their idea to address one of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
Kickoff AfterWork — September 16
Join us the evening before for an informal welcome gathering — meet your fellow innovators.
X-Labs & Showcase event — September 17
A full day of facilitated sprinting: challenges, prototyping, and a showcase where every team pitches what they’ve built. Read the full list of the 17 Sprint Challenges as in the event info and registration here.
Where: Impact Hub Stockholm, Regeringsgatan 65 in Stockholm
Find the full program and event registration on the right via “Book this event.”
Sprint Challenges
Each challenge for our Innovate for Humanity X-Labs event is grounded in one of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, framed to invite creative, technology-driven solutions. Teams self-select into the challenge that resonates most with them. All are open to any solution type — app, platform, service, tool, or business model.
1. No Poverty: The Safety Net That Isn’t There
PEOPLE & ECONOMIC DIGNITY · TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
What if the difference between stability and crisis came down to a single missed paycheck? Hundreds of millions of people worldwide live below the poverty line, and even in high-income countries, a significant share of households report they couldn’t cover an unexpected expense without borrowing. Existing safety nets are often slow, fragmented, or simply out of reach for the people who need them most. How might we build tools that catch people before they fall, not after? Read about SDG #1
2. Zero Hunger: Feeding Cities Without Wasting the World
FOOD SYSTEMS · TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
What if the food to end hunger already exists — it’s just in the wrong place? Roughly a third of all food produced globally is lost or wasted, even as hundreds of millions of people face food insecurity. The gap isn’t production. It’s distribution, timing, and access. How might we connect surplus food to the people who need it, faster than it can spoil? Read about SDG 2
3. Good Health and Well-Being: Care Before the Crisis
PEOPLE & HUMAN WELL-BEING · TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
What if most health emergencies were preventable, if only someone had noticed sooner? Health systems worldwide are built to react to illness, not anticipate it — leaving early warning signs unnoticed until a routine issue becomes an emergency room visit. The tools to detect problems early exist; they’re just rarely in the hands of the people who need them. How might we shift healthcare from reactive treatment to proactive care? Read about SDG #3
4. Quality Education: Learning That Meets You Where You Are
INCLUSIVE GROWTH · TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
What if the biggest barrier to learning wasn’t ability, but access? Hundreds of millions of children and young people worldwide are out of school or in school but not learning basic skills, often because of geography, cost, or a system that assumes every student learns the same way at the same pace. How might we design education that adapts to the learner, not the other way around? Read about SDG #4
5. Gender Equality: Closing the Gaps That Compound
PEOPLE & HUMAN WELL-BEING · INCLUSIVE GROWTH
What if small, everyday inequities were the reason bigger ones never close? Women remain underrepresented in leadership, underpaid relative to men in similar roles, and disproportionately responsible for unpaid care work worldwide — a pattern that compounds over a lifetime into wide gaps in wealth, opportunity, and safety. How might we build tools and systems that close the gap instead of widening it? Read about SDG #5
6. Clean Water & Sanitation: Resources We Assume Are There
ENVIRONMENT & SUSTAINABILITY · TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
What if turning on a tap wasn’t something you could count on? Billions of people worldwide still lack access to safely managed drinking water or basic sanitation, and climate pressures are making water scarcity more common in places that never used to worry about it. How might we make clean water and sanitation reliable for every community, not just the well-served ones? Read about SDG #6
7. Affordable Clean Energy: Better Power for the Planet
ENVIRONMENT & SUSTAINABILITY · TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
What if reliable energy and clean energy didn’t have to be a trade-off? Hundreds of millions of people still lack access to electricity, and many more rely on energy sources that are expensive, unreliable, or environmentally costly — a gap that slows everything from education to economic growth. How might we make clean, affordable energy the default, not the exception? Read about SDG #7
8. Decent Work & Economic Growth: More Pathways for Jobs
INCLUSIVE GROWTH · TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
What if economic growth didn’t automatically mean better jobs for the people producing it? Informal, insecure, and underpaid work remains the reality for a huge share of the global workforce, even in growing economies — leaving people without protections, stability, or a path forward. How might we build pathways to decent work that keep pace with economic change? Read about SDG #8
9. Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure: Building What’s Next
TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION · INCLUSIVE GROWTH
What if the infrastructure gap was the real barrier to innovation, not the ideas themselves? Reliable roads, connectivity, and industrial capacity remain out of reach for large parts of the world, meaning entire regions are locked out of the technologies and industries reshaping everywhere else. How might we design infrastructure and innovation that lift up the places left behind? Read about SDG #9
10. Reduced Inequalities: Designing for the Whole Distribution
PEOPLE & HUMAN WELL-BEING · INCLUSIVE GROWTH
What if most products and services were quietly designed for people who already have enough? Income and opportunity gaps within and between countries continue to widen, often because solutions — financial, digital, civic — are built around the needs of the already-included. How might we design systems that work for the whole distribution of people, not just the middle? Read about SDG #10
11. Sustainable Cities & Communities: Urban Living
ENVIRONMENT & SUSTAINABILITY · TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
What if the way we build cities was making them harder to live in, not easier? More than half the world’s population now lives in urban areas, a share that keeps climbing, yet housing costs, congestion, and pollution keep rising in step — straining the systems cities depend on. How might we build cities that grow without breaking the people and systems inside them? Read about SDG #11
12. Responsible Consumption & Production: Less is More
ENVIRONMENT & SUSTAINABILITY · TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
What if the products we throw away were the raw materials for what we build next? Global material consumption keeps climbing, and vast amounts of what’s produced — from packaging to electronics — ends up as waste within a year, even as demand for raw resources keeps growing. How might we redesign consumption and production so waste becomes a resource, not a cost? Read about SDG #12
13. Climate Action: Moving at the Speed the Problem Demands
ENVIRONMENT & SUSTAINABILITY · TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
What if the technology to slow climate change existed, but adoption couldn’t keep pace with the timeline? Emissions reductions, climate adaptation, and resilience planning all lag behind the scientific consensus on how fast action is needed — not for lack of solutions, but for lack of speed in deploying them. How might we accelerate climate action to match the urgency of the problem? Read about SDG #13
14. Life Below Water: Protecting What We Can’t See
ENVIRONMENT & SUSTAINABILITY · TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
What if the ocean was in crisis largely out of sight, and out of mind? Overfishing, plastic pollution, and warming waters are degrading marine ecosystems that a huge share of the world’s population depends on for food and livelihood — often faster than they can be monitored, let alone protected. How might we make ocean health visible and actionable before the damage is irreversible? Read about SDG #14
15. Life on Land: Land Under Pressure
ENVIRONMENT & SUSTAINABILITY · TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
What if the ecosystems keeping us alive were disappearing faster than we could track them? Deforestation, habitat loss, and species decline continue at pace worldwide, driven by land-use pressures that often outrun the tools available to monitor and manage them. How might we protect land and biodiversity at the speed they’re being lost? Read about SDG #15
16. Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions: Earning Trust
PEOPLE & HUMAN WELL-BEING · INCLUSIVE GROWTH
What if the biggest obstacle to progress wasn’t resources, but trust? Corruption, weak institutions, and limited access to justice leave millions of people without recourse when systems fail them — and that lack of trust makes every other challenge harder to solve. How might we build tools that make institutions more transparent and more accountable? Read about SDG #16
17. Partnerships for the Goals: Solving Together, Not Alone
TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION · INCLUSIVE GROWTH
What if the biggest barrier to solving global challenges wasn’t a lack of solutions, but a lack of collaboration between the people holding the pieces? Governments, businesses, and civil society each hold part of what’s needed to make progress on every goal above — yet still too often work in silos, duplicating effort instead of compounding it. How might we build the partnerships and platforms that let solutions scale together? Read about SDG #17
Find the full program and event registration on the right via “Book this event.”