When data meets purpose: Inside the 2026 Data4Good Festival

There’s something special about watching a room full of sleep-deprived students frantically debugging their code at 10 pm. Especially when that code isn’t for a cryptocurrency startup or yet another food delivery app, but for tackling genuine societal challenges.

Last weekend, the Hertie School hosted the third edition of the Data4Good Festival, and what unfolded was a masterclass in what happens when you combine technical skills with a fierce sense of purpose.

The setup

Picture this: 80 students from over 30 universities across eight European countries, all converging in Berlin for 48 hours of intensive hacking. No ordinary hackathon: this one came with a mission statement that actually meant something. But the project was about much more than data. For many students, it meant travelling to another country, working in another language, questioning one’s own assumptions – in short, stepping completely out of one’s comfort zone.

President Cornelia Woll and Data Science Lab Director Professor Simon Munzert set the tone from the off: in 2026, equipping young researchers with AI and data skills isn’t just nice to have – it’s absolutely essential for tackling the complex challenges facing our societies.

The students formed 16 teams and were given access to two fascinating datasets. Alum Dr Helena Bakic and Florian Bochert from the Bertelsmann Stiftung brought the “Religion Monitor” dataset, with Helena offering some sage advice: “Be bold, but be careful in your interpretation – context is everything.” Meanwhile, Friedrich Lindenberg of OpenSanctions arrived with global watchlist data from over 310 sources, bridging the gap between investigative journalism and analytical technology.

Beyond the buzzwords

What made this festival particularly refreshing was its refusal to treat AI as a magic wand. On Day 2, Huy Dang, the Data Science Lab Manager and unofficial father of the hackathon, led a session that pulled back the curtain on how AI coding assistants work. Huy walked students through when models should use tools, execute files, and conduct web searches. The real skill, it turns out, isn’t writing code – it’s knowing how to guide these models to use the right tools for the right problems.

The afternoon featured Leon J. Rückert, founder of GovIntel, who shared his journey through the often opaque world of GovTech. His work to make public-sector intelligence more transparent offered a glimpse into what “tech for the common good” looks like when it leaves the slide deck and enters the real world.

Those making a difference

After 48 hours of solid work, the teams presented their solutions. The judges awarded prizes across three categories, recognising different flavours of excellence:

The Technical Excellence Award went to Team AVIT (Laroussi Ben Moussa, Ziyad Ismail, Ahmet Selman Güclü, Ensar Polat, Emir Ünal, Berat Karahan) for their project “Knowledge Graph Investigate”, which showcased superior coding, scalability and genuinely innovative technical implementation.

Runners-up included Bocconi BEMACS (Beatrice Branciamore, Nidal Hevi Oğur, Albina Ntivuguruzwa, and Zhansaya Akhmetova) with “Tracking Power” and the Data 4 Good Oldenburg (Carlotta Steimke, Charlotte Keyßler, Michel Janßen) team’s analysis of perceived threats in the German region of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The Data Storyteller Award recognised something often overlooked in technical competitions: the ability to make complex data understandable to humans. Team Bipolar Bears (Denis Hoti, Ruslan Tsibirov, Veronika Rybak, Aleksandra Karabutova, Olga Ivanova, and Ali Guliyev) won with their aptly titled “We are afraid of what we don’t know”, using visualisation and narrative to cut through the noise. According to Denis Hoti of the team, “after 48 hours of intense work with the ReligionMonitor dataset provided by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, our team built coRel – a tool to help people understand religious diversity and build stronger, more connected communities.” The team’s core members previously participated in the Data4Good Festival and have since mastered their hackathon skills by participating and winning ten times.

Teams ALK (Drishti Roy, Daria Gromova, Lidia Czajkowska, Anastasiia Havrysh, Kasia Lagutowska and Karolina Radziejewska) and Here For The Pizza (Chiara Di Leva, Jemima Wulf, Hermine Skagestad, Oliver Solenský, Timo Knaus) followed closely behind with their own compelling data stories.

The Social Impact Award went to Team Data Siesta (Plácido Velasco Muñoz, Lila Stephany Landa Pake, Laura Granda Fernández, Pedro Javier Imbroda Castellano) for “Who gets a home?”, a project with genuine potential to influence policy and drive positive change. According to team member Plácido, working with the provided dataset, they uncovered a reality that is hard but necessary to show: religious minorities face significantly greater difficulties accessing housing, especially in Germany, a country often seen as a benchmark for cultural and religious diversity. “Our regression models were clear: even after controlling for age, income and education, belonging to a religious minority remains the strongest factor associated with housing discrimination.”

Teams GIGA (Abdurrahman Shoman, Farouk Elfarra, Hamza Touati, Yassin Kamal, Anas Al Natsheh) with “How contact reduces prejudice” and Stata One – Tricks Mannheim (Gianni Louis Fungipani, Rasmus Butschle, Luis Abeler, Thierry Hertzog, Tim Heckmann) with the project “Connecting the dots” proved that the runner-up spots were equally packed with meaningful insights.

Key takeaways

Events like this don’t happen by accident. Massive credit goes to the organising team – Atul Bharti, Trayda Murakami, Farhan Shaikh, Elizabeth Cassibry, and Marcell Matei – who spent the weekend supporting hackers around the clock.

“We have 16 fantastic teams working on challenges around sanctions and religion datasets, and I think some of the projects have big potential for impact,” explained Professor Simon Munzert. “Although this is a hackathon and a competition, there’s lots of cooperation between teams.”

As the students packed up their laptops and headed back to their respective corners of Europe, they left behind more than just impressive GitHub repositories. They left behind proof that when you give talented people meaningful problems to solve and the right tools to solve them, something wonderful happens.

The Data4Good Festival was organised by the Hertie School’s Data Science Lab. The next edition will be announced soon. If you’re a student interested in using your data skills for social good, keep an eye on our website.