Collaborative Hackathons: Enabling Corporate Sustainability Transitions. The Case of Riga Technical University Coopetition.
Knowledge Futures: AI, Technology, and the New Business Paradigm: 20th International Forum on Knowledge Asset Dynamics (IFKAD 2025): Book of Papers 2025
Diāna Šmite

The global transition toward sustainability faces significant challenges, including stagnant progress, corporate reluctance, and systemic barriers such as funding limitations and lack of effective frameworks (McKinsey & Company, 2024; Boston Consulting Group, 2022). As corporations play a critical role in driving sustainability, many have turned to corporate venturing mechanisms to accelerate knowledge exchange and innovation and solve different challenges involving different stakeholders. Among these mechanisms, corporate-driven hackathons provide a structured yet flexible platform to address sustainability challenges. This paper explores collaborative hackathons as a tool for corporate sustainability transitions, focusing on a case study of the Riga Technical University hackathon Coopetition in collaboration with multiple industry players. The case study provides a detailed analysis of the collaborative mechanism, highlighting learnings and future implications. The research aims to validate theoretical concepts with real-life case studies, resulting in an overview of crucial components of a collaborative hackathon. The case of the Coopetition is primarily based on four semi-structured interviews with representatives from all companies, next to the provided inputs, such as hackathon rules and supporting data, and outputs generated by participants during each event. The primary data were triangulated with secondary data from publicly available sources, including the companies’ websites, press releases, and social media. The key contribution of this research lies in validating theoretical insights with real-life implementation, resulting in a summary of crucial components of a collaborative hackathon in the transition to sustainability. This study offers a dual impact: for scholars, it highlights future research directions, while for practitioners, it delivers empirical insights and practical recommendations.


Keywords
Corporate venturing, transition to sustainability, collaborative hackathons

Šmite, D. Collaborative Hackathons: Enabling Corporate Sustainability Transitions. The Case of Riga Technical University Coopetition.. In: Knowledge Futures: AI, Technology, and the New Business Paradigm: 20th International Forum on Knowledge Asset Dynamics (IFKAD 2025): Book of Papers, Italy, Naples, 2-4 July, 2025. Naples: University of Naples Federico II, 2025, pp.124-124. ISBN 978-88-96687-18-5.

Publication language
English (en)
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