Circular Supply Chains for Critical Minerals Hackathon - The 14th Annual Sustainability Symposium at Columbia

As part of the 14th Annual Sustainability Symposium at Columbia, the Research Program on Sustainability Policy and Management sponsored the Circular Supply Chains for Critical Minerals Hackathon on March 27, 2025. ​The focus for this hackathon was on building solutions that enable practical, scalable re-use of critical minerals. Hackers, both Columbia affiliates and other climate enthusiasts, had 3 hours to develop a demo + business case using geospatial analysis and real-world data on manufacturing, mining, and recycling. 

The hackathon dealt with the following problem: Millions of valuable electronics are discarded, or forgotten each year due to a lack of awareness, time, and tools to resell them. This results in lost income for consumers and wasted critical minerals essential for the clean energy transition.

the winning team, Reclaim, presented a simple yet effective solution to this problem: unlocking critical minerals from e-waste through AI-powered resale automation. Users simply snap a photo of their old electronics, and the Reclaim platform identifies the device, analyzes its material composition, and recommends the highest-value resale marketplace. Reclaim will streamline the process by automating listings, eliminating friction and driving closed-loop circularity.

A teaser of the ten solutions the different teams came up with can be found here.