StudySmarter Hackathon Digital University

One event to change the way we study

What if I told you there is a way to digitize the university experience in a single day?

2.8 Million people study at German universities, fulfilling their academic passionate and preparing themselves for their dream career. Sadly, for more than one in four students this journey will not be successful, they drop out. Billions of Euros in economic losses and hundreds of thousand affected individuals, dropout rates constitute the largest problem in our higher education system.

80% of these dropouts can be traced back to problems in the learning process. A process that has barely changed over the past years and decades, leaving it seemingly hopelessly outdated compared to the rest of the student life.

This problem can be solved best by those, who experience it every single day – university students. As a university start-up ourselves, we want to provide a platform for students to turn their own ideas for the future of education into reality.

On December 7th, we are inviting more than 100 talented, interdisciplinary students to our StudySmarter Hackathon in Munich. During the Hackathon interdisciplinary teams will have the opportunity to come up with a solution to one of the four presented challenges and pitch to win the prize pool.

100 Students. 4 Tracks. 2.8 Million Winners

To equip students with the right tools to achieve their goals, we have teamed up with academic institutions and partners, with entrepreneurs and politicians. The technical development is for instance supported by Google Engineers, while representatives of the TU Munich provide the necessary educational knowhow. Representatives of our awesome partner companies such as Roland Berger, Deutsche Bahn, LV1871 and 71Circles will also provide students with continuous feedback and advice throughout the day.

In the evening, the teams will have the opportunity to present their ideas in start-up like pitches. Our expert jury consists of university leaders (TU Munich, University of Applied Science, FOM), academic partners (Hochschulforum Digitalisierung, CDTM, UnternehmerTUM), 6 members of the German parliament and industry experts (Google, Universität Bayern e.V., LV1871).

6 months ago, we already hosted a similar event and it was truly inspiring what the participants were able to develop in a single day. From fully functional prototypes to ideas that fascinated industry experiments, the presentations could not have been more diverse and interesting. Even more importantly, it is great that multiple teams continue working on their idea to this day.

This Hackathon is going to feature four distinct tracks, allowing a holistic improvement of higher education.

Open University

More than 3 million students have completed a semester abroad through the European program Erasmus and foreign students have become the norm on German campus. Yet the dropout rates for international students remain higher for their national peers and students often report difficulties in their first few weeks in their new host country. How can we make studying abroad as easy as staying at home?    

Student Networks

WhatsApp, Facebook, Mail, Discord, Slack, Jodel. The opportunities to communicate in our day and age seem sheer endless. Yet students networks go far beyond chatting, encompassing possibilities to share and collaborate in the learning process. Effective communication should not only include students, but also professors and universities themselves. How should Student Networks of tomorrow look like?

Content Transformation

Text or Video? Quiz or Podcast? Although it ultimately comes down to personal preference, people tend to express a clear preference for videos and interactive formats. One of the main questions of digital education is thus, how we can transform content (such as text) into more fun and engaging formats on a grand scale. How can we provide the relevant content for digital teaching methods?

Future Skills

47% of jobs could be done by machines “over the next decade or two”, while two thirds of children entering primary school today will end up working in jobs that do not exist yet. Consequently, universities have to prepare students for a world we don’t know yet. What are Future Skills and how can universities teach them?

Want to become of part of the journey to revolutionize education?

Please find more information on our Hackathon at futureofeducation.de. Students can apply directly through the website in less than two minutes.

We’re always happy to welcome non-student participants to our event as well. If you’re interested please shoot us a mail at hello@studysmarter.de

Looking forward to seeing you there!