The Hero Awards has launched a new program enabling citizen activists to achieve recognition for their sustainability efforts through a customized progression cycle involving seven artificial intelligence systems. The initiative aims to democratize efforts toward achieving the United Nations' 17 Sustainability Goals and their 169 specific targets by leveraging the unique strengths of multiple AI models while minimizing hallucination issues.
According to Hero Awards Sustainability Director Amy Chang, the program addresses a gap in recognizing everyday contributors to planetary improvement. The process involves sequentially submitting UN Targets to seven AI systems: Meta.ai, Claude.ai, Copilot.microsoft.com, Gemini.google.com, Perplexity.ai, Deepseek.com, and Chatgpt.com (version 5). Each AI's output feeds into the next, creating refined and actionable solutions.
Initial testing involved students from Cambridge, Yale, Berkeley, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford universities, alongside girls from the Herat Underground School in Afghanistan, which educates girls forbidden from formal schooling by the Taliban. The project was co-created by Friends Beyond Borders, AI Happiness Accelerator, and the World Mind Network.
Education Director Savithri Machiraju emphasized that beyond the AI-derived solutions, participants experience significant cognitive skill advancement. Each AI's distinct personality and capabilities help users improve both AI responsiveness and their own problem-solving abilities. Preliminary results showed that for every 100 participants, 61 wrote blog posts, 39 published articles, 8 started NGOs or non-profits, and 5 initiated startups related to their chosen targets.
All solutions are archived on The Hero Awards' academia.edu site for ongoing study, and winners are celebrated through various media channels. The program allows multiple participants to address the same targets, as AI-human collaboration yields endlessly creative approaches. Winners gain the privilege of conferring the award to others who follow the protocol, further expanding the initiative's reach.
The United Nations' sustainability framework, detailed through its Global Indicators, provides the foundation for these efforts. The Hero Awards program represents an innovative approach to global problem-solving that combines artificial intelligence with human intelligence to create tangible progress toward sustainability goals while empowering individuals worldwide.
