HackY­our­Dis­trict Work­shop 2025: Open Data and Open Tools for a Net-Zero Urban Transport

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Last week, we wel­co­med 35 inter­na­tio­nal par­ti­ci­pan­ts to our Mobility2Grid Rese­arch Cam­pus in Ber­lin (loca­ted on the EUREF-Cam­pus) for this year’s HackY­our­Dis­trict work­shop. The event was orga­nis­ed in coope­ra­ti­on with the Chair of Work Stu­dies, Tech­no­lo­gy and Par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on (ARTE) at Tech­ni­sche Uni­ver­si­tät Ber­lin and the TU Ber­lin Alum­ni Office.

For seve­ral years now, the HackY­our­Dis­trict series has demons­tra­ted how open data and open-source tools can unlock new per­spec­ti­ves for cli­ma­te-neu­tral mobi­li­ty and sus­tainable urban deve­lo­p­ment. The trans­for­ma­ti­on of mobi­li­ty and ener­gy sys­tems is tight­ly lin­ked to ever­y­day tra­vel rou­ti­nes, eco­no­mic struc­tures and urban envi­ron­ments. Open data and open tools – such as MAT­Sim, which we app­ly in glo­bal rese­arch pro­jects – help cities under­stand the­se com­ple­xi­ties and gene­ra­te bet­ter solutions.

Work­shops & Pro­gram High­lights 2025

DIY Sen­sors – Air Qua­li­ty & Traf­fic Coun­ting
Led by Robert Rich­ter and Alex­an­der Wendt, par­ti­ci­pan­ts built their own PM2.5 and traf­fic coun­ting sen­sors, took them home as sou­ve­nirs, and can now inte­gra­te them into their local envi­ron­ments to coll­ect data independently.

Open Data Plat­forms & AI Ana­ly­sis
In a work­shop by And­res Pinil­la Pala­ci­os, par­ti­ci­pan­ts lear­ned how sen­sor data can be aggre­ga­ted, visua­li­sed, shared and ana­ly­sed through AI-based web appli­ca­ti­ons – offe­ring a prac­ti­cal exam­p­le of data-dri­ven urban research.

Mini-Hacka­thon – AI for bar­ri­er-free side­walks
Buil­ding on results from the natio­nal Tai­wa­ne­se Hacka­thon (orga­nis­ed by Yunt­sui (Tracey) Chang, PhD and the Natio­nal Land Manage­ment Agen­cy), teams deve­lo­ped rapid ide­as for AI-based appli­ca­ti­ons to detect and remo­ve obs­ta­cles from side­walks, using YOLO4 and other open-source tools.

Excur­si­ons & Key­notes
Field visits and talks offe­red insights into Berlin’s civic tech eco­sys­tem (City­LAB Ber­lin) and cut­ting-edge smart city deve­lo­p­ments such as Ber­lin TXL.

Par­ti­ci­pant Con­tri­bu­ti­ons
This year’s con­tri­bu­ti­ons cover­ed a wide ran­ge of topics, including:

  • Crow­ding on Public Trans­port – Amit Agarwal

  • Micro­sco­pic Trans­port Ana­ly­sis in Bra­zil – Man­oel Men­don­ca de Cas­tro Neto

  • Rein­force­ment Lear­ning for CO₂ Reduc­tion at Inter­sec­tions – Shan­ma­thi Rajkumar

  • Citi­zen Assem­bly in Ukrai­ne for Inclu­si­ve Trans­port Plan­ning – Illia Tkachenko

  • AR-RAG for Smart Infor­ma­ti­on Retrie­val – Moritz Sont­hei­mer & Robin Fischer