🌿 EthnoHack 2026

Data Hackathon on Ethnopharmacology & Health

2–8 November 2026 · 100% Online · Discord + Devpost

Unlocking traditional knowledge with data, AI, and digital innovation

EthnoHack 2026 is a week-long online hackathon bringing together data scientists, AI researchers, computer scientists, bioinformaticians, pharmacognocists, botanists, historians, anthropologists, pharmacologists, ecologists, clinicians, and students to explore how computational methods can unlock the potential of traditional medicine and ethnopharmacology.

Across four challenge tracks, participants will work with open datasets, scientific literature, biodiversity data, chemical information, and digital health technologies to build innovative solutions addressing real-world challenges in:

🌿 Traditional knowledge
- Use NLP and AI to extract medicinal knowledge from historical, folklore texts and ethnobotanical studies. Map plant names across eras, identify therapeutic uses, and connect ancient knowledge to modern pharmacology.
🧪 Natural products and drug discovery
- Apply machine learning and cheminformatics to identify promising plant-derived compounds for specific disease targets. Build predictive models, knowledge graphs, and screening pipelines.
🌍 Biodiversity and sustainability
- Leverage geospatial and ecological datasets to map medicinal plant diversity, identify conservation risks, and develop tools for sustainable harvesting.
🩺 Digital health and phytotherapy
- Design apps, decision-support tools, or recommendation engines that connect phytotherapy evidence to clinical or patient-facing contexts.

The hackathon is organised under the ETHCSTWIN framework and aims to create connections between academia, industry, technology, healthcare, and civil society.

Whether you are an experienced machine-learning researcher or a domain expert with a great research question, you are welcome to participate.

What makes EthnoHack special?

EthnoHack sits at the intersection of several disciplines that are rarely brought together in a single hackathon.

Participants will have the opportunity to combine:

Artificial intelligence and machine learning
Natural language processing
Knowledge graphs
Cheminformatics
Bioinformatics
Geospatial and biodiversity data
Ethnobotanical and historical knowledge
Natural products chemistry
Digital health
Scientific research and evidence synthesis

You don't need to be an expert in every field. Interdisciplinary teams are encouraged.

💻 Fully Online

EthnoHack 2026 is 100% online.

Participants can join from anywhere in the world. Most collaboration will happen asynchronously through Discord, with scheduled mentoring, presentations, Q&A sessions, and the final pitch event.

Primary time zone: CET

Platforms: Devpost + Discord

Come with a research question, a technical skill, a domain expertise, or simply curiosity. Build something that connects traditional knowledge with the tools of tomorrow.

Requirements

What to Build

Build a working prototype, computational pipeline, model, application, analysis, or digital tool addressing a challenge within one of the four EthnoHack tracks.

Your project should demonstrate how data, computation, AI, or digital technologies can generate useful insights or capabilities related to ethnopharmacology, natural products, biodiversity, sustainability, or health.

Your project may be:

A web application
A mobile application
An AI/NLP system
A machine-learning model
A knowledge graph
A data-analysis pipeline
A cheminformatics workflow
A geospatial application
A visualisation or dashboard
A decision-support prototype
A research tool
An interactive database
A computational research project
Another digital solution relevant to one of the four tracks

Your project should demonstrate

A clearly defined problem
A computational or data-driven approach
A working prototype or demonstrable result
Evidence supporting your approach
Clear documentation
Potential real-world relevance

Projects do not need to be production-ready. Hackathon prototypes, research prototypes, proof-of-concepts, and experimental systems are welcome.

What to Submit

Each team must submit the following through Devpost by the final submission deadline:

1. Devpost Project Page

Your project page should include:

Project title
Selected challenge track
Short project description
Problem statement
Solution/approach
Technologies used
Data sources
Results or prototype demonstration
Team members
Impact and future development

2. Source Code

Provide a link to a public GitHub repository containing:

Source code
Data-processing scripts
Model code/notebooks where applicable
Installation instructions
README
Dataset references and licences
Instructions for reproducing the results where reasonably possible

3. Pitch Video

Submit a maximum 10-minute video explaining:

The problem
Your motivation
Your approach
Your technology
Your data
Your results
A demonstration of the project
Potential impact
Future development

4. Slide Deck

Submit a presentation of maximum 10 slides.

The slides should communicate the problem, methodology, results, demonstration, and potential impact clearly.

Recommended Project Structure

A strong submission will make it easy for judges to understand:

Problem → Data → Method → Prototype → Results → Impact

Teams should clearly identify assumptions, limitations, uncertainty, and any important data-quality issues.

Responsible Research

Projects should respect:

Dataset licences and attribution requirements
Intellectual property rights
Privacy and personal-data protections
Indigenous and traditional knowledge considerations
Scientific integrity
Appropriate interpretation of computational predictions
Responsible use of AI

Projects must not present unvalidated computational findings as established medical facts.

EthnoHACK

Prize breakdown

Timeline

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