- Quick start: join the next cohort
- What is Value Chain Hackers
- Why join?
- How the 20-week program works
- The open lab platform
- Focus areas
- How to join or contribute
- Governance, openness, and license
- About us
Value Chain Hackers is an open lab and community that turns complex supply chain sustainability-related problems into tested, scalable solutions through real-world collaboration.
Our next 20-week cohort starts soon → apply here
In each cohort, builders (students and professionals) team up with companies and researchers to:
- Work on real challenges in critical raw materials, agri-food, or regulatory compliance
- Map systems, find leverage points, and prototype solutions
- Test in the field and prepare a path to scale
As a builder, you’ll finish with:
- A tested solution in your portfolio
- New skills in ai, data, and supply chain tech
- A network and confidence to tackle big problems
Other ways to get involved
- As a company or organisation: bring us a challenge
- As a research team or institution: partner as academia
Value Chain Hackers is an open lab and community proposing a 20-week program where diverse teams tackle real supply chain sustainability-related challenges from start to finish.
We combine the drive of students and professionals, the lived challenges of companies, and the rigour of academic research. Together, we map what’s broken, understand the system, and design solutions that can scale.
Hacking here means going beyond the surface, finding leverage points, testing ideas in the real world, and learning fast.
Everything we create, methods, tools, and results, is open source, so others can adapt and build on it.
Why join as a builder
- Build on real problems from companies and communities.
- Learn how supply chains work end to end.
- Grow skills in supply chain, your chosen track, and ai and data.
- Join a supportive network and learn from mentors.
- Finish with a tested solution in your portfolio and confidence to tackle big problems.
What you will do:
- Collaborate in a mixed team.
- Map the system and find leverage points.
- Prototype quickly and iterate.
- Test in the field.
- Prepare a path to scale.
You will get:
- A tested prototype or solution that addresses a real-world problem.
- The ability to identify and act on key points of change in a supply chain.
- A clear understanding of why the challenge matters and how to influence it.
- A community of peers and mentors who share your commitment to change.
Pains we address
- Lack of capacity to explore new sustainability solutions while running daily operations.
- Uncertainty about where to start or which approach will work.
- Difficulty aligning internal teams and external partners.
- High risk and cost of testing unproven ideas in production.
What you get
- A mixed team of motivated students, professionals, and mentors working on your challenge for 20 weeks.
- A structured process that takes you from problem to tested prototype.
- Fresh ideas informed by academic research and grounded in field testing.
- Access to open tools and methods you can reuse internally.
Time commitment
- Flexible with time for meetings, feedback, and connecting the team to stakeholders.
- Support in providing data, context, and access to relevant people.
Deliverables
- A tested prototype or solution ready for further rollout.
- Documented insights on your system and leverage points.
- A scale plan with practical next steps and partner engagement.
Benefits
- Faster path from idea to implementation.
- Reduced risk through safe, small-scale testing.
- Prototypes and insights that can be scaled across your operations.
Why partner with us
- Work with live cases that bring academic theories into real-world testing.
- Access rich, multi-stakeholder data across different supply chain contexts.
- Generate publishable insights while contributing to practical change.
- Co-develop methodologies that can be applied and validated in practice.
What you get
- A defined role in a 20-week project team, working alongside builders and companies.
- Opportunities to design research instruments, guide data collection, and analyse results.
- Visibility for your institution through applied impact and open outputs.
- A pathway for translating research into tools, frameworks, and policy input.
Collaboration modes
- Research supervision for students or professionals in the cohort.
- Joint publications based on tested interventions.
- Methodological review and refinement for prototypes and pilots.
Benefits
- Real-world testing for theories and models.
- Broader impact by embedding research into operational change.
- Strong partnerships with industry and public actors.
You will move through three phases with clear outputs and reviews while working with mentors on methods, domain questions, and tooling.
Goal: understand the system, the stakeholders, and where change is possible.
Outputs: a scoped problem statement, a system map, a shortlist of leverage points, and a discovery brief.
Goal: design, prototype, and validate a solution with real users.
Outputs: working prototype, test plan, validation results, and a plan to harden or pivot.
Goal: prepare adoption and scale inside the organisation or ecosystem.
Outputs: field-tested solution, implementation roadmap, and a scale and governance plan.
You will have access to an open, modular stack and hands-on support. You do not need prior expertise with these tools.
- Capabilities: System and network mapping, research, supply chain management, sustainability.
- Tools: Our own self-hosted AI platform with access to most latest models.
- Mentoring: Domain mentors for each track, methods mentors for discovery and validation, and technical mentors for data, automation, and prototyping.
What it enables
- Access to up-to-date AI models for research, analysis, and creative problem-solving.
- Guided use of AI for mapping systems, exploring options, and testing ideas.
- Structured ideation framework to work through wicked problems and design actionable solutions.
- Step-by-step guidance on moving from problem identification to a tested, scalable solution.
Each cohort works on challenges from one or more of our core tracks.
Critical raw materials
From extraction to reuse, ensuring responsible sourcing, reducing dependency, and supporting circular approaches.
Agri-food supply chains
Improving sustainability, fairness, and resilience from farm to fork and beyond.
Projects run end to end across the value chain, combining technical, organisational, and stakeholder elements to create system-level change.
Join as a builder
Apply to take part in the next 20-week cohort before the 1/09/2025.
You will work in a mixed team on a live supply chain challenge, guided by mentors and using our AI platform and ideation framework.
Apply here
Bring us a challenge
If you are a company or organisation with a real supply chain problem, we can work on it with you during a cohort.
You will get a team for 20 weeks, structured methods, and a tested prototype or solution.
Propose a challenge
Partner as academia
If you are a researcher or academic institution, you can partner with us to ground projects in peer-reviewed work and turn tested solutions into academic insights.
Collaborate on methodology, guide data collection, and publish joint outputs.
Express interest
Value Chain Hackers is open source and open community.
All methods, tools, and outputs from cohorts are shared under an open license so others can adapt and build on them.
We follow a clear process to choose challenges, ensuring they are impactful, feasible within a cohort, and safe for all participants.
Our code of conduct sets expectations for respectful, collaborative work, and applies to everyone involved.
Contributions are welcome from builders, partners, and the wider community.
You can suggest improvements, share tools, or help refine methods through our public repository.
Value Chain Hackers started from a frustration with endless talk about fixing supply chains and a lack of spaces where people could work on real problems together.
We created a program where students, professionals, companies, and academics collaborate to design and test practical solutions in just 20 weeks.
Our goal is to make system-level change tangible, repeatable, and open, so more people can act on the challenges they care about.