20 participants from Czechia, Poland and Germany dedicated two sunny days in May to finding solutions to sustainability problems
Organized within the European Union-funded Interreg project Grüne Zukunft des Grenzraumes (A green future for the border region), the interdisciplinary hackathon united students, pupils and teachers from backgrounds as different as engineering, design, economy and science. One of them was a former (and future) CASUS employee who concluded that this was certainly not his last hackathon.
The CASUS participant was Maciej Tadej, a PhD student from the University of Wrocław who worked as a Student Assistant at CASUS in 2024 (after being chosen an Early Career Fellow within the Scultetus Early Career Fellowship program). He will join CASUS again in mid-2025. Maciej is involved in a research project devised by CASUS Young Investigators Ricardo Martínez-García and Michael Hecht.
The interdisciplinary hackathon certainly was a new and wonderful experience, Maciej said afterwards: “We were happy to code something meaningful with direct impact. It is really good to see how mathematics can solve real life problems. We will definitely take part in a hackathon once more!”
Media contact:
Dr. Martin Laqua
Officer Communications, Press and Public Relations Center for Advanced Systems Understanding (CASUS) at HZDR
There were eight case studies covering various sustainability challenges to choose from. The team of five around Maciej decided to tackle “Blue-green infrastructure – a concept for the Mandau for flood protection – quality of life – biodiversity”. The Mandau is a small creek at the border between Czechia and Germany. It passes through the German town of Zittau, where the event took place at the local Hochschule Zittau/Görlitz. While in many cities the rivers take center-stage, this is certainly not the case in Zittau. Hence, the aim of this challenge was to develop new ideas how to link the Mandau with the city taking into account touristic, recreational, ecological and flood prevention aspects.
Maciej’s team came up with the idea of an educational smartphone app. Within the two days they designed five stations located at different spots at the Mandau. With four mathematicians in the team, it was hardly surprising that the physics of the river flow the central topic of many stations. If the idea convinces those responsible in Zittau, there could soon be boards with QR codes along the Mandau. Passers-by could then use their smartphones to view the animations and explanatory texts.
Other projects dealt with the landscaping of the banks of the Mandau, solar charging for e-bikes or concepts for the energy efficiency of buildings. Hackathons come from the world of IT and being able to program is usually a prerequisite for participation. The Zittau event was more broader in scope as the teams drew on the expertise of people from project management, the creative sector and the handicraft sector. However, a classic code-based project emerged as the overall winner and took home 500 euros: After the project presentations at the end of the hackathon, the jury voted in favor of the Mandau app team around Maciej. Congratulations!
