Note: This English version was generated by AI. The original article was written in German.
When I started into 2026, I would never have thought that a new fascination would grip me like this. But things turned out differently: I discovered hackathons!
Actually, it all started more or less by chance. I was in the spring semester of my Bachelor of Science in Data Engineering when our lecturer drew our attention to the hackathon “Hack4SocialGood”. It is an event that looks for digital solutions for the social sector. That alone didn’t convince me, though. I opened the page and closed it again almost just as quickly. As far as I was concerned, the topic was settled for the time being.
What still wouldn’t leave me alone, though, was the fact that the BFH would credit me 2 ECTS for taking part. I mean, barely two days in exchange for credit worth 60 hours of work, that almost sounds too good to be true. The days went by and the registration deadline drew closer and closer, but I was still undecided. That changed when, in a conversation with one of my fellow students, he offered to go together. I just thought: at least this way I’ll know someone and won’t be alone. That was actually a rather strange line of thought for me, since until now I have always been able to mingle with new people anywhere without any problem (🤞 that it stays that way). So I still signed up on the evening of the registration deadline, and shortly afterwards the event was already here.
H4SG - my first hackathon
Beforehand, I was a bit nervous and didn’t really know what to expect. How does a hackathon even work? Would we sleep on site? Would we get something to eat? I somehow tried to get answers to all these questions. Unfortunately, the website didn’t offer much, and on Reddit you could find all sorts of contradictory information. So I decided to simply go with my colleagues. I thought to myself: hey, with my laptop in one hand and my wallet in the other, it’ll be fine.
And so it was: the event started on Friday morning. We arrived and were greeted right away with coffee and croissants. We were introduced to the challenges and other short presentations, and finally we decided on a challenge (and no, we weren’t on the same team, how could it be any other way?) and started working on the solution. We worked until at some point we went home, so that the next day, Saturday, we could put on the finishing touches, prepare the presentation and present our solution to the audience. Even though it wasn’t enough for the podium, it was an absolute enrichment for me. I got to enjoy insights into completely new worlds. I was able to have completely new experiences and talk to people I otherwise would have had no connection to. All in all, much more than just two ECTS! Even though, of course, I was happy to take those too.
Bärnhäckt
After the first hackathon, one thing was clear to me: I wanted to do a second one. On the one hand for the ECTS, on the other hand because I had really enjoyed it. That’s how I came across the Bärnhäckt hackathon, which took place during the summer semester break. This time I went with Ernest, who studies with me as well, only to have a completely different experience.
The hackathon ran from Friday evening until late Sunday afternoon. But this event would turn out to be completely different from the first one. It was exactly how I had imagined hackathons: lots of caffeine, sugar, short nights and long coding sessions. We both joined another team and worked on Anonymice (LinkedIn post). Time flew by. We worked, worked, worked, and suddenly it was Sunday. Not least thanks to Ernest’s sales pitch, we actually made it to second place 🏆. But all of that was only secondary. It was much more about the experience, about the people you got to know, about the stories you heard, and about the whole experience itself.
The Fascination
After Bärnhäckt, one thing was clear: Ernest and I both want to take part in more hackathons. So, by now, we have also been to the hackathon by HPE & Nvidia, which took place during the Swiss AI Weeks in Geneva, and soon we will also be at Baselhack.
This is what hackathons are about for me
In short: cool new faces and stories, lots and lots of impressions and the focus on finding a solution for our challenge!
I love devoting myself to just one problem and finding a solution for it, opening up various rabbit holes, trying to find the perfect and right solution for the use case at hand, and abstracting the problem in such a way that you can actually solve it.
Fortunately, we are living in 2026, so with the help of AI you can iterate quickly and bring your vision to life. But for me, it’s important to make a distinction: AI is the tool that helps us realize our vision within two days. AI is not the tool that does the thinking for us.
As participants in the hackathon, we are the ones doing the thinking: Where do we want to start? What challenges await us? Where do we draw the line? Which direction should it even go in? With these questions, we set the course for our solution.