[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":173},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-/blog/hamburg-hackathon-innovate-the-skies":3},{"_path":4,"_dir":5,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"title":8,"description":9,"date":10,"tags":11,"image":15,"draft":6,"body":16,"_type":167,"_id":168,"_source":169,"_file":170,"_stem":171,"_extension":172},"/blog/hamburg-hackathon-innovate-the-skies","blog",false,"","50 Hackers, a Transit Strike, and One Incredible Day in Hamburg","We ran our first aviation-themed hackathon with the Social Developers Club. 50 people showed up despite a national transit strike, and the projects blew us away.","2026-03-01",[12,13,14],"Hackathon","AI","Community","/images/blog/hh-hackathon-02-26.webp",{"type":17,"children":18,"toc":159},"root",[19,27,32,39,44,57,63,68,73,79,84,95,105,115,121,126,132,137,142,147,151],{"type":20,"tag":21,"props":22,"children":23},"element","p",{},[24],{"type":25,"value":26},"text","Last Saturday, Julia, An, and I ran our first aviation-themed hackathon with the Social Developers Club. Honestly, I'm still riding the high from it.",{"type":20,"tag":21,"props":28,"children":29},{},[30],{"type":25,"value":31},"The idea was simple: what if we got a bunch of people in a room and challenged them to build real-time, AI-powered travel tools using Gemini 3.0 and live aviation data? LLMs are powerful, but they don't know your flight just got delayed. We wanted to fix that.",{"type":20,"tag":33,"props":34,"children":36},"h2",{"id":35},"the-day-the-trains-stopped",[37],{"type":25,"value":38},"The day the trains stopped",{"type":20,"tag":21,"props":40,"children":41},{},[42],{"type":25,"value":43},"Here's the thing nobody planned for: Germany decided to have a national public transport strike on the exact same Saturday.",{"type":20,"tag":21,"props":45,"children":46},{},[47,49,55],{"type":25,"value":48},"I genuinely wasn't sure what to expect with no trains running. But 50 people showed up anyway. Some of them ",{"type":20,"tag":50,"props":51,"children":52},"em",{},[53],{"type":25,"value":54},"walked over an hour",{"type":25,"value":56}," just to get to SAE Institute in Hamburg. During a national transit strike, that's dedication. If that doesn't tell you something about the energy of the dev community here, I don't know what does.",{"type":20,"tag":33,"props":58,"children":60},{"id":59},"_14-hours-of-building-and-eating",[61],{"type":25,"value":62},"14 hours of building (and eating)",{"type":20,"tag":21,"props":64,"children":65},{},[66],{"type":25,"value":67},"We kicked things off at 8 AM with breakfast and coffee, because nobody's building the future on an empty stomach. After a quick intro to the Gemini Grounding API, teams formed, ideas got pitched, and then it was just... heads down, deep work for the rest of the day.",{"type":20,"tag":21,"props":69,"children":70},{},[71],{"type":25,"value":72},"One thing I love about hackathons is watching strangers become teammates in minutes. We required teams of 2–4 (no solo acts allowed), and that constraint did exactly what we hoped: it got people talking, collaborating, and riffing off each other's ideas.",{"type":20,"tag":33,"props":74,"children":76},{"id":75},"the-projects-that-blew-us-away",[77],{"type":25,"value":78},"The projects that blew us away",{"type":20,"tag":21,"props":80,"children":81},{},[82],{"type":25,"value":83},"Every team built something cool, but our three winners really stood out:",{"type":20,"tag":21,"props":85,"children":86},{},[87,93],{"type":20,"tag":88,"props":89,"children":90},"strong",{},[91],{"type":25,"value":92},"Team Layla",{"type":25,"value":94}," built a smart layover assistant. Got a 3-hour layover in Istanbul? It tells you whether you have enough time to actually leave the airport, explores the city, and gives you a custom route with a timeline so you don't miss your connection. Brilliant.",{"type":20,"tag":21,"props":96,"children":97},{},[98,103],{"type":20,"tag":88,"props":99,"children":100},{},[101],{"type":25,"value":102},"Team Fenster",{"type":25,"value":104}," (German for \"window,\" love the name) created an app that tells you about points of interest at the exact geographical location you're flying over, in real-time. Imagine looking out your airplane window and knowing that the river below you is the Danube, with a little history lesson attached.",{"type":20,"tag":21,"props":106,"children":107},{},[108,113],{"type":20,"tag":88,"props":109,"children":110},{},[111],{"type":25,"value":112},"Team Discover",{"type":25,"value":114}," went a completely different direction with a browser extension. If you're browsing concert tickets in another city, it automatically starts planning your trip: flights, airport routes, the whole thing. It felt like the kind of tool that should already exist.",{"type":20,"tag":33,"props":116,"children":118},{"id":117},"the-messy-parts-keeping-it-real",[119],{"type":25,"value":120},"The messy parts (keeping it real)",{"type":20,"tag":21,"props":122,"children":123},{},[124],{"type":25,"value":125},"Not everything was smooth. We gave teams Google Cloud credits for using the Gemini API, but we underestimated how long it takes to onboard 50 people onto new accounts in a time-pressured setting. I ended up running around helping most teams get set up. Note to future me: prep a step-by-step guide and do a dry run the night before.",{"type":20,"tag":33,"props":127,"children":129},{"id":128},"why-i-keep-doing-this",[130],{"type":25,"value":131},"Why I keep doing this",{"type":20,"tag":21,"props":133,"children":134},{},[135],{"type":25,"value":136},"Honestly? Organizing this was a blast. Julia, An, and I had a great time putting it together, and on the day itself it all just clicked.",{"type":20,"tag":21,"props":138,"children":139},{},[140],{"type":25,"value":141},"There's something special about seeing someone's face light up when their API call finally returns real flight data. Or watching a team that met three hours ago high-five after their demo. Or hearing that someone walked an hour through a transit strike because they didn't want to miss it.",{"type":20,"tag":21,"props":143,"children":144},{},[145],{"type":25,"value":146},"If you've ever thought about organizing a hackathon, even a small one, just do it. The community will show up. Literally, even when the trains don't.",{"type":20,"tag":148,"props":149,"children":150},"hr",{},[],{"type":20,"tag":21,"props":152,"children":153},{},[154],{"type":20,"tag":50,"props":155,"children":156},{},[157],{"type":25,"value":158},"The Hamburg Hackathon: Innovate the Skies & Beyond was organized by the Social Developers Club on February 28, 2026, at SAE Institute Hamburg.",{"title":7,"searchDepth":160,"depth":160,"links":161},2,[162,163,164,165,166],{"id":35,"depth":160,"text":38},{"id":59,"depth":160,"text":62},{"id":75,"depth":160,"text":78},{"id":117,"depth":160,"text":120},{"id":128,"depth":160,"text":131},"markdown","content:blog:hamburg-hackathon-innovate-the-skies.md","content","blog/hamburg-hackathon-innovate-the-skies.md","blog/hamburg-hackathon-innovate-the-skies","md",1773128206838]