International Collaboration to Educate in Global Citizenship Inspired by Laudato Si

The Pontificia Universidad Javeriana of Colombia, the Universidad Loyola – Spain, the Universidad Iberoamericana of Mexico, la Universidad Pontificia Católica de Valparaiso – Chile and la Universidad Católica de Salta – Argentina, inspired by the Encyclical Letter Laudato Sí of Pope Francis, have organized a virtual hackathon, through which they wish to make a call for both reflection and action; to the need to carry out a deep revision of our context and of the main socio-environmental problems of humanity, and of the responsibility that we as individuals have with the proposal of solutions in the care of “our common house”.

In the Hackathon Laudato Sí, 120 young people, in interdisciplinary and intercultural teams, have assumed as a challenge the idea of a solution, with technological mediation, oriented to overcome one of the social and environmental problems of humanity raised in the Encyclical Laudato Sí, such as migration and forced displacement, food security, responsible consumption, universal access to drinking water, deforestation, among others. Our young university students have sought the solution proposed in the key of integral ecology and sustainable development.

In September 23, 24 and 25, 2020, young Latin Americans and Spaniards, accompanied by professors from the five universities, have used their creativity to propose innovative solutions to socio-environmental problems, in a record time. The groups have been formed by one student from each of the universities, and belong to 21 different disciplines and fields of training, (engineering, medicine. history, law, journalism, architecture, philosophy, theology, economics, pedagogy, etc.). With this opportunity, we seek to inspire our young people, to share from the work in interdisciplinary and intercultural teams, the discovery of their skills, the identification of global problems, and the ideation of solutions to them with technological prototypes.

At the end of their work, a team of jurors, experts in technology, communication and in the Laudato Sí, have evaluated the solutions presented by the teams, and the best proposals have received, besides the recognition, a mentoring program to take their proposals to higher levels of development and entrepreneurship.

In this way, the five universities, in collaborative action and within the framework of the commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the issuance of the Encyclical Letter Laudato Sí, are responding to the call of Pope Francis to generate a change in humanity, from education, with optimism and hope, in the care of our Common House.