#HackYourCampus – The student hackathons

Even in times of Corona we can hack - this time only online. We had our first nationwide online hackathon in the first half of May. Please read more here.

Many students from all different fields of study come together for several hours in one place? This seems impossible in times of Corona. Yet what remains is: Four challenges, one goal. This is #HackYourCampus, what began in 2018 with a first attempt during the theme week is now becoming a program at universities throughout Germany in cooperation with StudySmarter. During the Hackathon, students deal intensively with topics and questions that they want to bring to their university. Which tools can be used to make studying more international? In which way can chat bots and language-assistants be used sensibly in teaching? What could a sustainable campus look like? And: will a (physical) campus be needed at all in the future?

On this page we inform about the hackathons, introduce the individual focus topics and present results. We are pleased about the active participation of students in interdisciplinary teams on issues ranging from gender gap and mobility to teaching and learning organisation.

#HackYourCampus at Google Berlin

On November 26, 2019, students from several Berlin universities gathered at the Google premises. This hackathon was all about participation and democratization. So it was fitting that Christian Lindner, a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), gave a keynote speech (and addressed several HFD topics). Peter Greisler, head of the department "Universities" at the BMBF, was also present. 

The approximately 80 students dealt with the following challenges:

Group Work matters! Foto: Lars Hübner

• Democratic Participation on Campus - How can student participation be increased?
  Diversity in MINT subjects - How can the "Gender Gap" become a thing of the past?
  Sustainability in studies - How can the ecological footprint of studies be reduced?
  Future Skills - How do students learn the skills for the 21st century job market?

It is nice to see that there are different categories among the three award-winning ideas:

• Third place went to Team Ecotrek. They would like to reduce the resource consumption of universities through a cross-university ranking system. Besides a reduced ecological footprint, the financial savings of the universities could be used for meaningful projects.
• {campusFrage} received the second prize for an already functioning application to promote student participation in hosch-political processes. In addition to a voting tool, students can, for example, initiate their own questions and topics, which could be further developed into hoschool-relevant tasks by using trending topics. 
• Combining online courses and other teaching content on a platform, then assigning them to a profile as competence badges and developing a personal, divisible guideline for further education on the basis of skill trees - Talentity has won first place with this project and a functioning website.

The three winning teams finally participated in the session #HackYourCampus - Students Sharing the Outcomes of a Hackathon at the OEB on November 29th in Berlin. During this session they could pitch their ideas and discuss them with the participants and identify possible connections. 

#HackYourCampus at the Technical University Ingolstadt

Also at the TH Ingolstadt a hackathon took place in autumn 2019. On 15 November, around 100 participants (schoolchildren, trainees and students) developed their vision of the future of "digital education" as key topics and at the same time there was a varied selection of challenges - adapted to the needs of students and the university:The challenges at THI: learning assistants, mobile learning, student mobility and future skills. Foto: TH Ingolstadt

• Learning assistants - How can intelligent, data-driven learning systems support and improve our individual learning style?
• Mobile Learning - How can learning opportunities via mobile devices be designed to enable learning independent of time and place? What effects does this have on learning?
• Student Mobility - How can digital teaching and learning offers individualise and make stays abroad and internships more flexible? How can knowledge be made available to all across countries and institutions?
• Future Skills - Skills in the age of digitalisation: Which skills set do we need for the labour market of the future? How can this knowledge be conveyed quickly and easily?
• A short retrospective video of the day can be watched on the THI YouTube channel.

The winner* was the team Future 4 Business. They convinced the jury with their idea of using Virtual Reality (VR) in the daily work context. Second place went to the Adducators with their learning app, followed by Team Digi Abroad, who want to make it easier for students to go abroad with their app.

A short review video of the day can be watched on THI's YouTube channel.

Contact persons of the university:

Arista Ruml - Mensch in Bewegung (loosely translated: People on the move)
Stefanie Probst - Digital Learning

#HackYourCampus at the Technical University of Braunschweig

The Hackathon at the TU Braunschweig is entirely in keeping with the spirit of the "Sustainable University". The first hackathon at the university took place on 17 January 2020 in cooperation with Haus der Wissenschaft GmbH. Students from all disciplines had the opportunity to develop their ideas on topics such as mobility on campus, participation or the organisation of knowledge. Already in the pipeline: the sponsorship of the winning teams in the sandbox. In keeping with the motto, the four challenges at TU Braunschweig are concerned with sustainable topics:

• Mobility - How will we move on campus in the future?
• Participation - cooperation is an important building block for an innovative university What solutions are there for opportunities for co-determination, cooperation between different status groups and the organisation and distribution of knowledge?
• Sharing - Keyword sharing and saving resources. How can a "Sharing Economy" be implemented at universities?
• Monitoring and resources - How can the consumption of resources be monitored and how can a greater sense of responsibility be generated in the follow-up process?

The first prize goes to "Waste Box": Entertaining and visually appealing waste separation. Funny coordination through visible results. Effective elimination of pollutants in the environment.

Second place went to the "Food Waste Awareness Bin" team: A waste bin is to be set up in the canteen, in which canteen visitors* are to dispose of their uneaten food. The bin shows the amount of waste and has a feedback system. This is intended to create awareness of food waste.

The idea "Okern" won third place: Sharing of objects and resources on a practical level: a physical and/or virtual place where items can be lent, given away or shared. This way we buy less (twice) and throw away less.

Here you can find the article of the TU Braunschweig in the Hochschul-Magazin.

Contact persons at the university:

Ariane Pedt - Project Group Teaching and Media Education
Maike Kempf - Project Group Teaching and Media Education

#HackUcation at the FernUni Hagen

For students of different universities worked on 07. March 2020 on the campus of the FernUni - yes, locally - on ideas for the following four challenges:

• We are going trend-scouting - how can new trends from the world of work be identified for the university sector and integrated into everyday university life - for example agility?
• Chatbots or language assistants - How can aspects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) be used sensibly within teaching?
• Online internships or intercultural networking - Which tools can be used to make a course of study more international?
• Between time management and motivation - Ideas for the modern organisation of a distance learning course are in demand.

The winners were the team around the idea "Luise - From the hierarchical to the individual learning situation". Second place went to "Virtual Tutor - The AI Training Tool" and the team for "Trendscouting - New Trends for Higher Education" took third place in #HackuCation.

You can read the detailed review of the FernUni Hagen here!

#HackYourCampus at ImpactHub Berlin

For three days at a time, we participated in a Design Thinking Hackathon at the ImpactHub in Berlin on the opening weekend of the 2018 theme week. The 30 students came from all over Germany for this event. In this final report, the method, procedure and results of the individual interdisciplinary teams were examined in more detail. The winning team then presented the project at the ideas pitch at the HFD Network Meeting 2018.