Dive into data
The hackathon for data-driven solutions
The Datathon is a hackathon organized by STADS, where teams of students develop data-driven solutions for real-world business challenges within a limited timeframe.
Companies provide real datasets and challenges — participants analyze, model, and present their results to an expert jury. Creativity, analytical thinking, and teamwork take center stage.
Whether you're a beginner or an experienced data scientist — the Datathon offers a unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience, connect with like-minded peers, and win exciting prizes.
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As guests on the SAP Sofa Talk, Cora Wackermann and Nolan Muniz Fernandez tell you everything you need to know about our annual flagship event.
0h
Intensive work
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Participants
0
Teams
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Editions
One weekend
01 / 04
Raw data
Companies hand over their real datasets. No tidy columns, no clean answers - just the mess that actual business problems come in.
02 / 04
Exploration
The first hours go into understanding what you are even looking at. Teams of three to five split the work and start digging.
03 / 04
The model
Somewhere in the middle everyone stops exploring and commits to an angle. Models get trained, thrown away, and trained again.
04 / 04
The pitch
Every team takes the stage. Creativity, analytical thinking and teamwork decide who convinces the expert jury.
And then it's over. Until the next one.
2017 to today
From the first idea to the fifth edition — a look back at every event.
2017
01Since its founding, STADS has hosted workshops and courses, educating members in Python, SQL, and Excel and keeping them close to the latest developments in data science. Soon we started to grow, and the vision of organizing bigger events formed. Starting with workshops and cooperations with leading industry partners, we quickly realized the potential of a self-organized Datathon.
Fall 2022
0270+participants
Over 70 highly motivated students spent two days of intensive data-driven problem solving at the Mafinex Technology Center in Mannheim. Working in teams, participants tackled four real-world challenges provided by leading companies — from deploying a machine learning model to building a recommendation engine and handling inconsistent master data.
Spring 2023
0360+participants
Over 60 participants tackled healthcare challenges using real-world datasets.
Fall 2023
044challenges
Two days of collaboration, creativity, and innovation across four unique challenges in data science, data visualization, and coding. Beyond the competition, the event opened doors to industry professionals and partner companies.
Spring 2025
0519teams
For two intense days, over 80 participants across 19 teams came together to code, innovate, and tackle real-world data science challenges. The energy was electric as teams explored data, trained machine learning models, and presented groundbreaking solutions.
Spring 2026
063-5per team
Designed like a hackathon, participants worked with exclusive real-world data to predict bike availability at strategic hubs like Mannheim Main Station — reducing user frustration by predicting shortages before they happen. Teams built predictive models using LightGBM, Random Forest, and Feedforward Neural Networks.
Real problems, real data
The next one is in the making
Dates for the next Datathon aren't public yet. Follow us and you'll hear it first.
