We welcome anyone with a strong interest in interdisciplinary and data-driven policymaking. Technical skills (e.g., programming) are not strictly required. While we generally target university students and young professionals, anyone can register as participant. Students from various study backgrounds are welcome to participate.
Not at all! We welcome participants from all backgrounds. Whether you’re a policy person, a data scientist, a designer, or a curious student, your perspective is valuable. We will provide introductory workshops and mentoring during the event to support diverse skill levels. Just bring your interest, curiosity, and ambition! :)
A policy hackathon may sound unfamiliar to some at first, but the event essentially takes on the format of a traditional hackathon, but with a broader and socially-oriented focus on creating policy rather than only technical applications or code solutions. Therefore, while we welcome designs or demos of technical solutions that could enhance policymaking, they are not mandatory. The emphasis of the event is on crafting innovative, data-informed, and impactful policy proposals, in many cases also enhanced by rigorous data analysis.
At the kick-off of the event, teams will select one of the four policy themes they would want work on. These “policy themes” could, for instance, be: Healthcare, Sustainability, Responsible AI, Watermanagement, Transparent Governance, Urban Planning & Environment, etc. Each policy theme has a specific challenge case provided by one of our esteemed Challenge Partners, which are organizations that work on pressing societal issues. Throughout the weekend, teams will develop data-driven policy proposals to solve the case within their policy theme. Each theme will be guided by a Challenge Director during the event.
Yes. During the kick-off, the policy themes and their respective challenge cases will be presented. Then, teams can select in which policy theme (i.e., on which case) they want to work on during the hackathon. However, there will be a limit on the maximum number of teams that can work on a policy theme (e.g., max. 5 teams). Teams may have to sign up for their preferred theme based on first-come first-serve or a ranking of their top 3.
Teams are expected to write a concise policy proposal and/or policy action plan, while also presenting their work to the audience and jury in a short, 3-minute pitch at the end of the hackathon.
After each team has presented their findings, the jury will select finalists in each policy challenge theme. These finalists then receive the opportunity to answer questions by the jury and audience. Ultimately, the jury will deliberate once again before selecting a winner in each policy theme.
Participation in the hackathon is free of charge. However, participants are responsible for covering their own travel and accommodation expenses.
At this time, the event is in-person only.
We are unable to facilitate accommodation in any form. Participants are expected to plan their own stay.
The event will be fully held in English and the deliverables are expected to be presented in English.
Yes! You can register as an individual. We will organize a team formation session at the start of the hackathon to help individuals find teammates.
Sure! While you’re free to form your own team, we encourage multidisciplinarity and diversity in the composition of teams. The hackathon is a great opportunity to work and connect with students and professionals from various backgrounds. We also believe in the value of multiple disciplines and perspectives to ensure impactful policymaking. Lastly, we recommend to have a balanced composition between technical and social participants.
We aim to have 3-5 participants in a team, with 5 maximum. This ensures a balanced mix of perspectives and manageable group dynamics. In case we are able to offer more than 4 policy challenges, there may be a possibility that the team sizes will be limited to 3-4 to ensure enough teams per policy theme.
Yes. Each challenge partner will provide datasets, access to data platforms, or references to public datasets relevant to their case. You’re also welcome to bring in and cite external open data sources. Participants may have to sign an NDA and/or IP-waiver.
Bring your laptop and any software tools you’re comfortable with (e.g., Excel, R, Python, Canva, PowerPoint). We recommend having tools ready for writing, data analysis, and presentation design.