Climate Tech Club: A Year of Showing Up
An end-of-year reflection on climate hackathons, community building, and what happens when you stay consistent
It’s been a remarkably fruitful year hosting climate hackathons and community events.
What started as a few experiments turned into something much bigger: a growing, durable climate tech community in San Francisco — and beyond. As 2025 wraps up, I’ve been reflecting not just on what we hosted, but on how momentum formed, how collaboration evolved, and why I’m excited to keep building Climate Tech Club into 2026.
(Drumroll 🥁 — yes, an ocean tech hackathon is already in the works.)
What Is Climate Tech Club?
Climate Tech Club is a community for people working on — or curious about — climate, energy, AI, and infrastructure.
It’s intentionally interdisciplinary. Founders, engineers, researchers, operators, investors, students — all in the same room. Some events are highly technical. Others are social, reflective, or exploratory. The common thread is curiosity and a bias toward action.
Not everything needs to be a startup.
Not everything needs to be optimized.
Sometimes the most impactful thing you can build is a place where people actually meet.
2025, in Motion
Climate Tech Club didn’t grow through a single flagship event. It grew through repetition, experimentation, and a willingness to try different formats and scales.
Here’s what that looked like this year.
Feb: Geoengineering × AI Hackathon
The year started with a one-day Geoengineering × AI hackathon, inspired by Climate Hacks in New York started by Dan Bakke. It included a founder & CEO talk by Conor from Liquidstar, grounding the day in real-world climate and energy challenges:
- 40+ participants
- 5+ projects built in a single day
- A focused, high-signal group of builders
I was nervous going in. It was my first time hosting a hackathon solo. But people showed up — and more importantly, they stayed engaged. That day proved something important to me: starting small is still starting.
April: SF Climate Tech Week
April was a leap in scale.
In addition to co-hosting a two-day large energy hackathon, we experimented with something new: designing community support before, during, and after a major conference — not just one-off events.
The Energy Hackathon
We co-hosted a high-energy, in-person energy hackathon with partners across the climate and energy ecosystem from Bayou Energy, Palmetto, Shovels, Stepchange, Texture and Virta Ventures.
- 400+ registrations and 120 participants accepted
- 30+ energy-focused projects
- Access to real energy products and APIs from startups in the space
- Judges spanning investors, product leaders, and climate founders
What made this hackathon special wasn’t just the scale — it was how accessible it felt. People came from many backgrounds: engineers new to climate, early-stage founders, students, and experienced energy practitioners. Teams formed quickly, built fast, and shipped real prototypes grounded in current industry tools.
Navigating Climate Week Together — A Workshop Series
During SF Climate Tech Week, Climate Tech Club co-hosted a alongside a broader series of events by Cynthia Leung.
Alongside the hackathon, we co-hosted a 3-part interactive workshop series with Cynthia Leung designed to help people make sense of Climate Week itself — and turn networking into action.
The sessions covered:
- Pre-Climate Week: strategizing how to show up with intention via mind-mapping with Cynthia Leung
- Processing Climate Week: reflection, reconnection, and integration. A casual “walk & talk” that surprisingly lasted 8 hours!
- Post-Climate Week mentorship: turning momentum into next steps workshop with Cynthia Leung
These workshops weren’t about content consumption — they were about giving people mental tools to break down complexity, reflect in real time, and leave with something actionable.
Together, April taught me something important:
Community momentum doesn’t come from a single event — it comes from designing continuity.
June: SF Deep Tech Week — AI Infra & Energy Day
In June, during SF Deep Tech Week, Climate Tech Club co-hosted a full-day salon on AI Infrastructure & Energy — shifting from hackathons to deeper, more focused conversations.
The event brought together hundres of founders, investors, and researchers working on the physical backbone of AI: compute, chips, capital, power, and infrastructure. Rather than pitches or panels for scale, the emphasis was on candid dialogue and early-stage ideas shaping the future of AI systems.
I spoke about the growing energy demands of AI data centers and how this surge in compute is forcing a rethink of power systems, infrastructure planning, and the role of renewables. That conversation connected many of the threads I’d been exploring all year — climate, energy, AI, and infrastructure — and reinforced how tightly linked these worlds really are.
What stood out most was the depth of engagement. People stayed, conversations ran long, and follow-ups continued well after the event — a reminder that the right room often matters more than the biggest one.
Sep: NY Climate Week — Adaptation Hackathon
In September, during New York Climate Week, I volunteered and helped host a one-day climate adaptation hackathon — a moment that felt full circle.
The framing was clear and urgent: as extreme weather intensifies, the institutions we’ve long relied on — government agencies, insurers, infrastructure systems — are showing real cracks. This hackathon brought together civic technologists, climate researchers, finance and insurance professionals, and public-sector stakeholders to build tools that help communities understand risk and act earlier.
Over the course of a single day:
- ~100 participants formed multidisciplinary teams
- 20+ projects were built
- Challenges focused on air quality and environmental justice, extreme heat resilience, and NYC subway stormwater resilience, grounded in real institutional efforts and policy contexts
Being back — this time as an organizer — reinforced how much these spaces matter. Climate work can be overwhelming. Events like this make it collaborative again.
November: Hack for Social Impact Hackathon
The year culminated in Hack for Social Impact, one of the largest hackathon I helped organize in 2025.
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Hack for Social Impact is a 501(c)(3) tech nonprofit that bridges nonprofit organizations solving hard, real-world problems with technologists eager to make an impact. This year’s event was explicitly designed around well-scoped, urgent challenges — problems that could realistically move forward after a single weekend.
- 600+ registrants and 150 participants accepted
- 2-day hackathon
- 30+ projects
- ~$10K in prizes and 3 winning teams
We partnered with 9 nonprofit organizations working across:
- Homelessness — from streamlining trauma-informed intakes to addressing severe funding cliffs
- Climate & biodiversity — unlocking underused datasets to influence policy and habitat funding
- Justice — accelerating exoneration processes for the wrongfully convicted
- Information democracy — surfacing accountability stories from siloed civic records
- Health equity — using geospatial data to improve access to care in rural health deserts
In addition to cash prizes, teams had the opportunity to continue working directly with nonprofit partners to bring their projects closer to deployment — a model inspired by prior Hack for Social Impact winners who went on to present at global forums and build venture-backed startups.
By this point in the year, the difference was palpable. The fear was gone. The systems were solid. Collaboration felt fluid. Hack for Social Impact wasn’t just another hackathon — it was the culmination of a year of learning how momentum compounds when you keep showing up.
Events Are Catalysts — Community Is the Outcome
One of the biggest lessons this year was that events themselves aren’t the goal.
The real value shows up afterward:
- When someone meets a future collaborator
- When a hackathon project turns into a longer-term effort
- When people realize they’re not alone in thinking about hard climate problems
Climate Tech Club became a container for those moments — not because everything was perfectly designed, but because it was consistent and genuine.
Personal Reflection: From Hosting Events to Building an Ecosystem
At the beginning of the year, I was focused on hosting events. Over time, my mindset shifted toward stewarding a community.
That meant:
- Saying yes to collaborations
- Letting go of control
- Creating space for others to lead
- Trusting that community, like momentum, compounds
It also meant learning when to slow down. Not every month needs a massive event. Sometimes the most impactful thing is a smaller gathering, a follow-up conversation, or simply holding space for people to connect.
What This Year Reinforced
A few truths became very clear in 2025:
- You don’t need a massive platform to build meaningful community
- Consistency beats perfection
- People crave spaces that feel genuine, not transactional
- Climate work is hard — and much easier together
The same mindset that applies to endurance sports or building products applies here too: show up, repeat, adapt.
Gratitude
Climate Tech Club exists because of people.
I’m deeply grateful to:
- Everyone who attended a hackathon, meetup, or walk
- The collaborators and co-hosts who shared ideas and energy
- The organizers and volunteers who made things run
- The broader climate tech community that welcomed experimentation
Thank you for trusting this space — and for shaping what it’s becoming.
Looking Ahead to 2026
As we head into 2026, I’m excited to keep building Climate Tech Club in San Francisco — and beyond.
What’s coming:
- An ocean tech hackathon (coming end of Feb🌊)
- Grid tech summit and other events during SF Climate Tech Week (April)
- Health Tech x Climate hackathon co-hosted with Stanford & Cornell
- Climate and energy panels and events during NY Climate Week (Sep)
- Hack for Social Impact in the fall
- Smaller, more frequent gatherings for deeper conversation
- Continued collaboration with climate and tech communities
The goal isn’t scale for its own sake.
It’s depth, continuity, and impact.
If you’ve been thinking about getting involved — this is a great time.
Join Us
If you’re interested in upcoming events or collaborations:
- Website: https://www.climate-tech-club.com
- Luma calendar & newsletter: https://luma.com/sf-climate-tech-club
Climate Tech Club will keep being what it started as:
a place to try things, meet people, and build together.
Because if this year taught me anything, it’s this:
Momentum doesn’t come from certainty.
It comes from showing up.
Much love 🌱
