Hala Sharafeddine
2026 Eco-Hero
2nd PLACE
Hala Sharafeddine
Age 16
Beirut, Lebanon
Code for Earth: Empowering Girls Through Environmental Coding
At 16 years old, innovator Hala Sharafeddine is bridging the gender gap in STEM and environmental advocacy by empowering young women across the globe. Based in Beirut, Lebanon, Hala’s passion for sustainability began at the age of eight when she ranked sixth globally in an international essay competition focusing on the UN's 14th Sustainable Development Goal, "Life Below Water". As she grew older, she faced bullying for her academic dedication and criticism for her ambition to study environmental engineering. Recognizing how easily young women can be discouraged from pursuing misunderstood passions, Hala launched "Code Her Way" to create a safe space for girls to be curious, ambitious, and purpose-driven. This initiative also serves to revive her mother's legacy project, a social enterprise aimed at equipping youth with entrepreneurial skills. Under this umbrella, Hala created "Code for Earth," a virtual educational initiative that equips girls with beginner-friendly coding skills to build technology-driven solutions for local environmental challenges.
In August 2025, Hala independently organized and led a comprehensive three-day virtual workshop for 50 selected participants, chosen from over 130 global applicants across the MENA and South Asia regions. To ensure no participant was left behind despite language barriers, she provided customized bilingual support, sending explanatory voice messages in both Arabic and English and staying up late to answer technical questions across multiple time zones. The curriculum walked students with no prior coding experience through learning HTML and CSS on the first day, followed by expert guest sessions on today’s most pressing environmental issues on the second. The workshop culminated in a final team project where participants designed and launched six functional awareness websites addressing issues like plastic pollution, marine conservation, and renewable energy. The initiative achieved a remarkable 92% completion rate, with teams integrating real-world impact activities like digital petitions and interactive quizzes directly into their platforms and presenting them to a panel of expert judges.
Hala’s leadership extends beyond virtual workshops into tangible community and infrastructural impact, often executed amidst severe infrastructural challenges and ongoing conflict in Lebanon. She is currently piloting "GreenGrid Trade," a peer-to-peer solar energy trading startup aimed at reducing the country's heavy reliance on illegal diesel generators by promoting clean energy exchange. This startup has already secured over $35,000 USD in grants. Her exceptional advocacy recently earned her the Youth Policy Challenge Award at the American University of Beirut for her proposal "Protect Our Planet, Protect Our Minds," and she is supported by the Ban Ki-Moon Foundation's "Your Future in Green Jobs" mentorship program. Looking ahead, Hala continues to mentor her workshop's winning teams and plans to launch further programming to foster a new generation of digital green leaders.
"Not only did Code for Earth improve my time-management and multi-tasking skills, but it also confirmed exactly why I put in as much effort as I did. It confirmed my WHY. My reason to be, and that, simply, is to give girls all over the world THEIR reason to be."
