Science Hack Day is coming to Berlin

Science Hack what?

Imagine a room full of people, energy and enthusiasm surround them. Small teams are solving for 36 hours in a row small and large problems related to science. Science Hack Days are inspired by the idea of Hackathons which first cropped up in the last decade in the San Francisco Bay area and spread all over the world, to the delight of technophiles everywhere. The idea is simple: Bring energetic, skilled people together over one or two days, supply them with delicious food, drinks and cool surroundings and entice them with an interesting idea or tricky problem and see what creative solutions they can find.

While hackathons are often related to using specific API’s and solving problems via programming, why should hackathons be restricted to this field? This question was also asked in 2010, by Ariel Waldman, who first began applying these ideas to the scientific community and since then, Science Hack Day (SHD) has spread.

For whom is it for?

Scientists, technology lovers, engineers, programmers, creatives, communicators, and all other interested people– we are all waiting for you! Come feel the excitement and be driven by an atmosphere which encourages you to make, create, experiment and invent new ideas or methods you may only have imagined!

So what is a hack then?

A hack can be any quick solution to a scientific problem: A small device you’ve always wished to have in your lab, an instrument you need for a specific measurement or a novel experiment which simply does not yet exist! Or how about a physical model of a phenomenon which makes a complex scientific concept easy for non-scientists to understand, or a new perspective on large public data?

More than for scientific achievement or longing for perfection, we want the weekend to be driven by creativity and interdisciplinary team spirit in order to create outstanding prototypes. We want you to break out of the thought, that if something does not exist, it is not possible to have. Here you not only have a voice but perhaps also a team who likes your idea and wants to contribute to it.

What if I don’t have an idea?

If you have the feeling that this could be an enjoyable weekend for you, you must come around. It’s free and you don’t have to bring anything. All we ask you for is to get excited by the atmosphere and participate in a project you like. Bring your laptop and any electronic components or whatever else you’ve got if you think you might need it. You never know if someone might shout out at 3am “does someone have a hot-glue gun?”

If you have a concrete idea even better. You will have the opportunity to pitch your idea on opening night and gather a team around you. At the end of the event there will be a public presentation and a team of judges will present awards for the best hacks.

In the next couple of weeks we will provide you with even more details, including selected hacks from previous events and general thoughts on how individual hacking will shape our future. Stay tuned.