'Code 4 Compassion': Young Coders Build AI-Powered Tools For Animal Welfare, Environmental Conservation & Philanthropy At First-Of-Its-Kind Hackathon In Mumbai

Mumbai: India’s bright and young minds came together to build next-gen tools for animal welfare and environment conservation. The young coders built artificial-intelligence (AI) powered tools for stray reporting, animal rescue, animal welfare violations, vegan lifestyle support and philanthropists’ databases.

On July 7, around 150 software developers, AI builders and entrepreneurs grouped up in 25 teams to participate in a first-of-its-kind AI-hackathon ‘Code 4 Compassion’ in Mumbai to solve issues related to causes like animal welfare and environmental justice.

The participants, from across the country including IIT Bombay, MIT-India and other leading tech firms, tackled problem statements directly sourced from frontline animal advocacy and environmental organisations building next-gen tools for animals and the planet.

Young Coders Showcase AI Tools for Social Good at ‘Code 4 Compassion’ Hackathon in Mumbai

The hackathon, organised by Electric Sheep and OpenPaws in partnership with various organisations, aimed to prototype real-world AI tools for NGOs, citizen movements and advocacy organisations. Many of these prototypes built during the hackathon drew interest from NGOs, investors, as well as international partners.

One of the prototypes, SaferStrays, is a comprehensive stray animal reporting system that connects citizens with local rescue resources while building a census database for targeted welfare programs while another RescueRadar is an intelligent cruelty report processing system that categorizes incidents, extracts key details, and routes urgent cases to appropriate authorities and rescue organisations.

Similarly, a multilingual content generation platform for educational animal welfare materials IndiaForAnimals, automated compliance monitoring system to identify potential animal welfare violations SufferingWatch, parliamentary records and news monitor to provide early alerts to advocacy groups AnimalParliament and an AI chatbot delivering vegan lifestyle support, VeganMe were developed by the young coders.

At the same time, developers also built softwares and websites like FirstHello, an intelligent cold outreach automator to identify decision-makers within target organisations and generate personalised advocacy messages, streamlining corporate engagement campaigns. One of the teams built Profilr, which is a sophisticated fundraising agent that analyses potential donors' philanthropic histories to generate compelling, personalised outreach pitches aligned with their giving patterns.

Ash Singh, CEO of Electric Sheep, said, "The innovation and ingenuity that these young coders demonstrated represents a quantum leap in how technology can serve animal and climate advocacy. India’s combination of tech talent and mission alignment can drive impact as we’ve never before seen. We’ve worked in Silicon Valley and across Europe and India’s AI talent is right up there in terms of proficiency and creativity."

A prototype from one of the previous editions held in the US, was adopted by a UK-based NGO to oppose the construction of new factory farms. Organisers now aim for similar on-ground impact in India, with several Mumbai projects already receiving offers of mentorship, incubation, and early-stage funding.

It plans to build a permanent AI-for-impact incubator campus in India and launch an open-source library of the Mumbai tools, and scale the initiative to Bangalore and Delhi in 2025–26.

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Sam Tucker-Davis, executive director of OpenPaws, said, “This is India’s moment to lead. We're not just mentoring coders, we're brokering lifelong collaborations between India’s tech community and movements that need AI the most. The mentorship model we've developed allows participants to achieve remarkable results, and the solutions created here will have lasting impact across the movement."