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​Paris, you didn’t disappoint 🚀
 
Paris came alive at the first ThinkYoung hackathon of our series organised with the support of Google.org!  
 
Ten teams brainstormed, built, and tested tech-driven solutions to fight election disinformation and help boost civic engagement. Guided by top international experts and mentors, young innovators and change-makers set the stage for a stronger digital democracy in Europe. 

Have you seen our aftermovie yet?

ThinkYoung Paris Hackathon After Movie

Winners

Meet the winning teams selected for the grand final!
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LaRéponse.tech

 

Vera is an AI-powered tool that helps users quickly debunk misinformation by generating well-argued, source-based comments in various tones—professorial, friendly, or ironic—directly below disinformation content. Designed to make fact-checking engaging and scalable, it leverages real-time source verification and user participation to protect truth in online discussions, especially during electoral processes.


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Data For Good

 

This project leverages AI and expert-annotated data to detect and analyze climate disinformation on social media, providing concrete insights into its scope and impact. By empowering fact-checkers, platforms, and policymakers with data-driven tools, it aims to advocate for stronger regulations, enhance content moderation, and raise public awareness, ultimately supporting the fight against climate misinformation.

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Special Mention

Judges awarded a special mention to the following team

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Influence au Mboa

This project aims to combat election disinformation through a technology-driven platform that tracks and verifies fake news using keyword referencing, AI-powered image and video detection, and human verification. Additionally, it will serve as an educational hub, provide interactive discussions, and integrate essential election resources—including polling locations, candidate details, and accessibility features—to ensure informed and inclusive voter participation.


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Experts & Mentors

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Elsa Da Costa
Mentor

Elsa Da Costa is a graduate of EM Lyon and ESJ Paris, is an author and an entrepreneur. Idealist and pragmatic, she has a passion for narratives and storytelling. She is committed to young people, and determined to deliver systemic changes.

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Guillaume Alvarez
Mentor

Guillaume Alvarez lived, studied, and worked in eighteen different countries, spanning five continents. As a business leaders, he focuses on innovation, healthcare, and education. Formerly a Senior VP at Steelcase, he has also supported numerous think-tanks and associations in Europe.

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Constance de Leusse
Mentor

Constance de Leusse has over 20 years of experience in digital policy, technology, research, and education, Constance is currently the Executive Director of the Tech and Global Affairs Innovation Hub at Sciences Po. She is also a Senior Fellow at the European University Institute (EUI). She has been instrumental in developing new internet governance institutions and co-authored the UN Internet Universality concept.

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Karen Fortin
Mentor

Karen Fortin is the CEO of 2050NOW La Maison (ex-Netexplo), Karen is dedicated to accelerating the sustainable transformation of businesses. Karen has a proven track record in program execution, partnership development, sales, and financial management. She is an advocate for diversity, inclusion, and women entrepreneurship, as well as a startup advisor and investor. Karen's passion for innovation and working with diverse entrepreneurs drives her success in fast-paced, international environments.

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Clémence Pène
Mentor

Clémence Pène is the Co-Chair of A Voté, Clémence is a leader in advocacy and mobilization. Her work focuses on driving democratic participation and ensuring fair elections. Her expertise in digital democracy is invaluable for those looking to create impactful, socially-driven projects.

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Tamara Spitzer-Hobeika
Mentor 

Tamara Spitzer-Hobeika a scholar with a deep focus on campaigns, communications, and technology, Tamara divides her time between Paris and New York. She oversees the Scientific Council of A Voté, bringing rigorous academic insights and strategic vision to the organization. Her research and leadership in these fields make her an exceptional guide for innovators aiming to make a difference.

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Karim Mijal
Judge

Karim thrives on working with governments, communities, content creators and aspiring leaders to solve complex issues together and translating public policy and challenging briefs into effective campaigns. By building teams made up of new talents and senior professionals and designing systems that add value, he focuses on delivering impact and change. As a generalist and cross-functional leader, he acts as a connector and a bridge and he is ready to leverage his unique blend of in-house and agency experience. Over the past few years, he spent much of his time shuttling between London, Tunis and Baghdad. He worked and volunteered in the Middle East, Maghreb, Europe, the USA and Brazil for a diverse range of government clients, institutions and organisations including the United Nations, the Obama Campaign, Meta, the French Chamber of Commerce and now ThinkYoung. He is an avid coffee drinker, curious about photography and visual arts, committed podcasts listener, keen headspace app user and loves a good long run.

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Aude Favre
Judge

Aude Favre is an investigative journalist for over 15 years and a YouTube host, the President of the Fake Off organisation and founder of the Citizen Facts project: a gigantic collaborative newsroom where any member of the public can investigate with news professionals. Broadcast on Arte, the Citizen Facts series won the Media prize at the Assises internationales du journalisme in Tours and is currently nominated for the Franco-German Journalism Prize.

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Caroline Span
Judge

Caroline Span is a digital social entrepreneur. Co-founder of Welcome Account, the neobank for newcomers. She is also former co-director of La MedNum, the leading playerr on digital inclusion in France. She strongly believes in the emergence of responsible, innovative companies focused on the public interest. She has degrees in political science from Panthéon Sorbonne University and ESCP-Europe.

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Charles Haddad
Judge

Charles Haddad is working at the Government Information Service for 5 years, and he is in charge of the Government's social network accounts. Charles also teach social media strategy at the University of Poitiers.

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Benoit Tabaka
Google Secretary General

Benoit Tabaka is the Secretary-General of Google France, Benoît Tabaka holds a degree in public law from the University of Burgundy and a diploma in intellectual property from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). In 1999, he joined the Constitutional Council, then the documentation department of an electronic legal publishing company. Until October 2002, he was part of the Knowledge Management team at the American law firm Landwell & Partners. In addition, until June 2006, Benoît Tabaka was responsible for the activities of the Forum des droits sur l'internet (Forum on Rights on the Internet) in the area of e-commerce.

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Mia Sahl
Expert

Mia Sahl has been working as a reporter, researcher, and editor in Sweden since 2004. Two years ago, she joined the Google News Initiative, where she now trains journalists and journalism students across northern Europe. Her focus is on teaching the use of Google's tools for conducting research, verifying facts, and discovering new stories in editorial settings.

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Jean-Gabriel Ganascia
Expert

Jean-Gabriel Ganascia is currently Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the Sorbonne University, a EurAI Fellow, an honorary member of the Institut Universitaire de France and a member of LIP6 (Laboratory of Computer Science of the Sorbonne University). His current research activities focus on artificial intelligence, machine learning, computational ethics, computer ethics and digital humanities. He is also the author of a dozen books for the general public, the latest of which, entitled “AI Explained to Humans”, has been published by Éditions du Seuil in September 2024. Currently, Jean-Gabriel Ganascia chairs the Ethics Committee of France Travail that is the French National Employment Agency, AFAS ("Association Française pour l'Avancement des Sciences").

Regional Partners

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Paris Partners

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ThinkYoung is a not-for-profit organisation, aiming to make the world a better place for young people by involving them in decision-making processes and providing decision-makers with high-quality research on youth conditions. ThinkYoung conducts studies and surveys, makes advocacy campaigns, writes policy proposals, and develops education programmes: up to date, ThinkYoung projects have reached over 800,000 young people. We have offices in Brussels, Geneva, Hong Kong and Nairobi. ThinkYoung has 12 years of experience working to empower students all over the world with needs-tailored programmes such as the ThinkYoung Coding School and the ThinkYoung Entrepreneurship School.

with the support of

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Google.org, Google's philanthropy, supports nonprofits that address humanitarian issues and apply scalable, data-driven innovation to solving the world's biggest challenges. We accelerate their progress by connecting them with a unique blend of support that includes funding, products, and technical expertise from Google volunteers. We engage with these believers-turned-doers who make a significant impact on the communities they represent, and whose work has the potential to produce meaningful change. We want a world that works for everyone—and we believe technology and innovation can move the needle in four key areas: education, economic opportunity, inclusion and crisis response.

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