Hero Awards Launches AI-Driven Protocol to Democratize Sustainable Development Goal Implementation

The Hero Awards has introduced a new methodology that combines seven artificial intelligence systems in a sequenced workflow to help individuals translate the United Nations' 169 Sustainable Development Goal targets into practical action plans. According to CIO John Toomey, this approach is designed for everyday changemakers who have approximately three hours to create maximum impact toward planetary challenges. Since 2019, the organization has recognized people and teams driving meaningful progress toward the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and with the advent of modern generative AI, they have created a system to make heroism more practical, accessible, and predictable.

Education Director Amy Chang explained that the protocol produces multiple outputs including a GPT listed on OpenAI's GPT store, a continuously refreshed Innovation Engine built with Google's NotebookLM, and starting in 2026, a group collaboration tool based in Microsoft Loop. These components create 169 robust solution-evolvers that, alongside human judgment, keep generating new approaches to the Goals and Targets over time. Sustainability Director Savithri Patel noted there hasn't been an obvious route for everyday heroes to earn recognition for sustained work on planetary challenges, so they created a process that blends human judgment with AI, moving ideas across multiple models to make them more grounded, practical, and less vulnerable to hallucinations.

The workflow begins by priming each AI with heavily tested prompts to keep them focused on producing actionable, real-world solutions. Each model then builds on the previous model's work, adding detail, clarity, and checks along the way. The current highest-performing sequence includes Meta.ai, Claude.ai, Copilot.microsoft.com, Gemini.google.com, Perplexity.ai, Deepseek.com, and ChatGPT (v.5.2). In practice, a single SDG target is presented to the first model, with its output passed sequentially through all seven systems to strengthen and stress-test the proposal. Completed solutions are archived on The Hero Awards' Academia.edu page so others can study, reuse, and improve them.

The organization reports that the process improves more than just the final deliverable—it also strengthens participants' analytical and creative abilities. Patel explained that each AI has its own personality with different strengths and blind spots, and by iterating across all seven models, participants accelerate their own capabilities while getting better results from the tools. In a preliminary project conducted in 2022, researchers discovered that for every 100 completed procedures, 29 participants wrote content that received traction in traditional media, 14 were quoted in academic or professional journals, 7 started an NGO or non-profit entity associated with their chosen Target, and 5 founded a startup. The biggest source for new insightful project participants in 2025 has been Substack creators, who are finding the protocol particularly valuable for their work.

Chang emphasized that this approach democratizes planetary stewardship and human flourishing by making change feel both achievable and personally meaningful. The methodology represents a significant shift in how individuals can contribute to global challenges, leveraging familiar AI tools to develop practical solutions while building a global mindset. The organization's approach to archiving solutions and enabling participants to confer honors on others creates a sustainable ecosystem for continued innovation toward the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, potentially accelerating progress through distributed problem-solving.