News — October 1, 2024 — Ivory Innovations announced three winning student teams for the 7th annual Hack-A-House, a 24-hour “hackathon” created to engage students in proposing innovative solutions to address the housing affordability crisis. A total of $13,000 has already been awarded to seven student teams, with an additional $3,000 of prize money to be awarded in the coming weeks to a Grand Prize winner and People’s Choice Award winner.
381 students from 67 universities around the globe competed in three categories, each focused on a different issue facing the housing industry. These issues included expanding incentives to use building methods and materials, encouraging infill development and density in neighborhoods dominated by single-family homes, and providing a housing safety net for cost-burdened residents. Student teams were encouraged to brainstorm ideas and pitch creative solutions with help from industry experts within each focus area.
Abby Ivory, president of Ivory Innovations, said, “We had overwhelming student participation this year, signaling the importance of housing issues to the next generation and their interest in solving these issues through innovative solutions. Housing is a critical issue for young people, and we are excited to engage as many students as we can through our work to help them become part of the much-needed solutions that will affect their generation and change the industry.”
Team awards went to seven teams from nine schools around the United States. Each winner received $3,000, and each runner-up received $1,000. The"People's Choice" award recipient will receive an additional $1,000 based on public voting on . Everyone is encouraged to vote for their favorite submission by October 7th at 12:00 pm MT. View submissions and vote for the People’s Choice award recipient at .
Innovation Incentives:
- Winner: Holz Haus Hackers - UC Berkeley
- Runner-up: BlackBear - University of Maine
Single-Family Housing Densification
- Winner: Property Brothers - University of Utah
- Runner-up: TKJ Development - University of Utah
- Runner-up: NYLS Development - Columbia University
Housing Safety Net
- Winner: HomeTown Hackers - MIT
- Runner-up: Team Hero Hackers - California Lutheran University, Kennesaw State University, Indiana University Bloomington
One of the winning teams above will be selected as a Grand Prize winner and receive an additional $2,000. Co-hosted with Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, the will take place on October 25, 2024, from 12:30 to 4:00 PM ET at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. At the Summit, each winning Hack-A-House team will present their submission to a live audience who will vote on a Grand Prize winner. The Summit will be both in-person and virtual, and no advance registration is required to view the live stream.
Hack-A-House 2024 received generous financial support from Think Wood and the WaFd Foundation. In addition, Ivory Innovations, representing the University of Utah, partnered with five universities to drive student participation: Columbia University, The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, the University of Arizona, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Denver.
Congratulations to all of the 2024 Hack-A-House participants, especially the winners and runners-up!
For more information about Hack-A-House, the Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability, and Ivory Innovations, visit and .
About Ivory Innovations: Ivory Innovations is an applied academic institution at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business dedicated to catalyzing high impact innovations in housing affordability. Ivory Innovations seeks to promote the most compelling ideas in housing affordability by working across sectors, providing monetary awards for groundbreaking innovations and leveraging its network and resources.
About Think Wood: Think Wood is a communications campaign that provides commercial, multifamily and single-family home design and build resources to architects, developers, and contractors. Think Wood’s primary funder is the . SLB is a check-off program and was established to promote the benefits and uses of softwood lumber products in outdoor, residential and non-residential construction. Programs and initiatives supported by the SLB focus on increasing the demand for softwood lumber products in the United States.
About WaFd Foundation: The Washington Federal Foundation's purpose is to facilitate direct giving to community-based nonprofits that primarily serve the needs of people with low-and-moderate incomes.
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