Energy transition in the household, personalization of cooking recipes, help with extreme weather conditions - this year's "hackaTUM" was once again all about creative solutions to practical problems. Students from 75 universities on three continents took on the tasks set by companies.
The official Hackathon of the TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology (CIT) took place for the eighth time last weekend. Originating from a research project, the programming competition has now developed into one of the largest of its kind in Europe. The organizing team received over 1,750 applications this year. 900 participants were selected. An enrolment at TUM is not required.
"Anyone who is enthusiastic about coding and can withstand the 36 hours can take part," Alexandra Klymenko explains with a smile. The doctoral candidate from the Chair for Software Engineering for Business Information Systems has been organizing the weekend event in her spare time for several years together with her colleagues Stephen Meisenbacher, Nektarios Machner, Tim Schopf and Juraj Vladika. Nine prestigious sponsor companies provided the challenges this year. "On Friday evening, the participants were introduced to the various tasks," explains Alexandra Klymenko. "These are real problems from everyday life." There was also a so-called "Wild Track", where participants were able to present their own tasks. In addition to the challenges, the companies also offered workshops and networking events.
