Hackathons, Conventions, and Conferences
Hacker congresses, hackathons, code retreats, conventions, and conferences. I go to a lot of them, and I write them up to remember what I learned and the people I met.
16 articles, newest first.
October 2026
Stay Forever Con Nord 2026
A Retro Weekend in Hanover, From the Pavillon to the HI-SCORE Museum
At the end of October 2026, I traveled to Hanover for the first northern edition of the Stay Forever Convention: two days of live podcast recordings in a packed hall, a quiz night, a community dungeon puzzle, and a Saturday after-show among the arcade cabinets of the HI-SCORE video game museum. Plus Deutsche Bahn.
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July 2026
Confessions of a Kitchen Troll
Volunteering at Goulash Programming Nights 24
The other thing I did at GPN24: I signed up as a troll, which is what GPN calls its volunteers. Two kitchen shifts, a legally mandated briefing about poultry, a mountain of bell peppers, and a pallet truck called an ant. A report from inside the volunteering system that keeps a hacker congress fed, and about the absurd pride of having helped, however little.
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June 2026
Feedback at the Scale of Chaos
The Analog Synth Workshops at GPN24
At GPN24 in Karlsruhe, a late-night workshop on chaotic sound synthesis turned into a wonderful, room-wide audio-feedback installation. There were Benjolins, a ukulele, a mutant Farfisa organ, and even an acoustic-electric guitar plugged into the signal paths. This is what Klangforschung sounds like once hackers stop caring for tonality and embrace curiosity for the electronic.
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April 2026
How a Hackathon Can Be a Mirror to Your Soul
A Survival Guide to the People You Meet
Hackathons are a blast. An entire product cycle crammed into one intense, concentrated session. You get a problem, a deadline, a team, and start with a blank canvas. Then, you find out what participants are really made of. Here's a handy guide to the usual suspects.
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January 2026
Angels in a Makeshift Utopia
The Chaos Communication Congress 39C3 in Hamburg
For four days every year, the Chaos Communication Congress creates a parallel universe consisting of hacker meet-ups, art exhibitions, political salons, and technologists' playgrounds. In 2025, it manifested once again in Hamburg as the 39th Congress. I was lucky enough to attend for the very first time! This is my travelogue of the punk rock technology utopia.
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November 2025
The Game of Test-Driven Development
A Day of Coding and Experimentation Above the Rooftops of Vienna
On a crisp November Saturday, about thirty developers gathered at SQUER's Vienna office to practice Test-Driven Development. We learned, experimented, and rediscovered the joy of crafting code. One key takeaway stood out for me: it's okay to learn from things you make and then throw them away.
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June 2025
Goulash Programming Nights
The Legendary Congress about Hacking and Art
What happens when you gather 1,500 hackers, artists, and tinkerers inside one of Europe's most iconic media art spaces, and throw in flying sharks, Club-Mate cocktails, and a goulash kitchen straight out of a military field manual? You get the GPN23, the Goulash Programming Nights. Equal parts tech conference, digital playground, and cultural mashup. Many questions are asked but one is never answered: "What is normality?"
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May 2025
Re:publica 2025
Of Generations, Digital Realities, and Berlin in the Rain
It starts out like a joke: generation X, Y, and Z walked into a former train station. What followed at Re:publica 2025 was a crash course in AI, activism, and the awkward art of active listening. Most of us walked out changed, having learned about new ideas and other people. I certainly did.
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March 2025
Brains, Voice, Eyes, and Beard
Our Hackathon Adventure at BuildX Voovo Budapest
The clock was ticking, pizza power was flowing through our veins, and our team, the Health Hackers, was racing to build an AI-powered quiz generator at the BuildX Voovo Hackathon in Budapest. What followed was a whirlwind of late nights, AI struggles, and last-minute twists in a battle against time and technology.
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January 2025
Think. Do. Discover.
Attending A Great Code Retreat on Test-Driven Development in Linz
It was a fine day! A day of coding, learning, and connecting with like-minded developers at the Code Retreat in Linz in January 2025. Fun and engaging, from tackling programming challenges with constraints to sharing stories and insights with amazing people.
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November 2024
Things I Learned at Drupalcamp Berlin
(Yes, I Know, I'm Late to the Party)
On November 8th and 9th I went to Drupal Camp Berlin. I learned about Starshot, a bold initiative to make Drupal more user-friendly and accessible. Among the many talks I attended, I also went to sessions about the open-source tracking tool Matomo and the Drupal Association's plan to overhaul documentation using the "Docs Like Code" approach. I learned a lot at Drupal Camp Berlin!
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October 2024
Voxxed and Loaded
The Voxxed Days 2024 Tech Conference in Thessaloniki
The Voxxed Days 2024 in Thessaloniki is probably the premier tech conference in town, bringing together developers, architects, and tech enthusiasts from across Europe. I managed to attend a wide range of talks, workshops, and hands-on sessions covering topics from email, technical debt, cloud computing, and the omnipresent AI, to software architecture. Here's what I saw and did!
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June 2024
Graffathon 2024
Where Coding Meets Art
In June 2024, I went to Graffathon in Finland, an interesting intro to demoscene culture. 28 participants met for this uniquely starter-friendly demoparty, enjoying a good helping of creativity and collaboration. On two and a half days, demosceners crafted seventeen impressive demos, showcasing the talents of both beginners and advanced coders. Here are my impressions of Graffathon 2024, exploring the vibrant intersection of art and technology that defines this extraordinary community.
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November 2023
Junction X 2023
Helsinki Hackathon Horizons
In November 2023 at the Junction X hackathon in Helsinki, our team tackled the challenge by steel maker Outokumpu, focusing on sustainable AI solutions in steel production. The experience was delightful and enriching showcasing the power of diverse collaboration and the spirit of ingenuity, leaving us with invaluable insights and memories.
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August 2023
Coding for a Cause
Our Hackathon Adventure at KfW Bank in July 2023
On a warm July weekend in 2023, in the heart of Frankfurt/Main, our team participated at the KfW Bank Cloud DevOps Hackathon. We jumped into challenges ranging from Microsoft Azure Cloud to Kubernetes and beyond. Join us as we recap our unforgettable adventure, filled with innovation, camaraderie, and a whole lot of code.
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May 2023
Our Team Won A Hackathon
Caffeine, Code, and Collaboration: CraftHack 2023
In May 2023, we participated in the CraftHack 2023 hackathon in Budapest and created the POC for HealthHub, a doctor's AI assisted portal for scheduling CT scans. To our delight and surprise, our team was awarded the grand prize from among forty competing teams. It was an unforgettable experience. This is what happened, these were the mistakes we made, and this is what we learned.
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