Between hackathon, AI art and car sharing: the digital year 2025 in Karlsruhe
What happens when open data is supposed to help us understand the coronavirus crisis? When young people don’t just consume technology, but build it? When AI is not an end in itself, but shows attitude? And when mobility, art and urban development are rethought digitally?
2025 was a year in which code met urban society, AI met art, sensors met bicycles – and ideas suddenly became very real. Between hackathons and media art, student projects and international exchange, 2025 created a dense network of innovation, responsibility and curiosity. If you want to know what the future looks like in concrete terms, you don’t have to travel far, just read.
Together for a better future
We started the event year 2025 with nothing less than an attempt to tackle the coronavirus crisis, at least in a data-based way. The HackDays Karlsruhe 2025 took place in March in the House of Living Labs at the FZI and were part of the international Open Data Day. Under the motto “Open Data to Tackle the Polycrisis”, participants used open data to work on solutions for urban and social issues such as mobility, the environment and sustainable urban development.
karlsruhe.digital was a co-organizer of the HackDays and designed the format together with partners from civil society, science and administration. The interdisciplinary approach was characteristic: programming, data analysis, design and conceptual work were intertwined. The results were not seen as finished products, but as a starting point for further work – including in the subsequent DatenCafé, which facilitated project development beyond the hackathon.
CycleSense, a project that exemplifies the Karlsruhe approach to the smart city, was launched in 2025: it emerged from a student working group, is scientifically sound and open to participation. Around 100 interested people met at the CyberForum Karlsruhe to get to know a measurement concept that records particulate matter where it is produced: on the move, on bicycles and in daily city traffic. More than 100 sensor boxes provide a more comprehensive data basis than previous stationary measuring points. Collected real measured values are transmitted via LoRaWAN and put discussions about air quality, mobility and health on a new data basis.
LEARNTEC: Education in digital practice
In May, LEARNTEC 2025 was once again dominated by digital education and new learning formats. karlsruhe.digital was not only a media partner of the trade fair, but was also represented with its own joint stand together with technika – Karlsruher Technikinitiative. Pupils from Karlsruhe technology clubs presented the results of their work and gave an insight into their projects.
The focus was on concrete applications: self-developed constructions, technical experiments and prototypes that were created without predetermined building instructions. The future skills that were much discussed at LEARNTEC, such as independent problem solving, practical work and interdisciplinary thinking, were not described in abstract terms, but made directly visible. The parallel NEW WORK EVOLUTION also underlined how closely education and the world of work are now being considered together.
GodotCamp: Open development and community
With the GodotCamp 2025, Karlsruhe hosted a barcamp on the open source game engine Godot in May. The format organized by the community deliberately focused on openness: content emerged spontaneously from the participants’ suggestions, without a fixed agenda or invited speakers. karlsruhe.digital was involved in the implementation as a partner of the Godot Stammtisch Karlsruhe e.V. and, together with the FZI, accompanied a weekend that focused less on finished results and more on exchange, joint learning and collaborative development in open formats. The importance of open technologies and self-organized communities for creative digital work became apparent – even beyond traditional conference formats.
#DigiWomenKA: Toxifree
As part of the #DigiWomenKA series , Toxifree was presented as a special app that – like its founders – stands for the responsible use of AI and female start-up initiatives. It became clear how psychological expertise, well thought-out UX design and artificial intelligence can be combined in a meaningful way, with a clear focus on data protection, self-determination and social impact.
30 years of Stadtmobil: car sharing as an established mobility component
The 30th anniversary of Stadtmobil Karlsruhe in 2025 made it clear just how much car sharing has become part of everyday mobility. What began in the mid-1990s as a deliberately alternative model is now a digitally organized service that combines flexible use, transparent billing and resource-saving mobility. Consistent digitalization, from booking to opening the vehicle via app, makes car sharing a practical alternative to owning a car for many people. At the same time, Stadtmobil shows what role sharing services can play as a building block of a smart city: fewer vehicles, more efficient use and new scope for sustainable urban development – in Karlsruhe as well as in the surrounding area.
Beyond Karlsruhe: InBus Conference at FUTUROMUNDO
With the InBus Conference on FUTUROMUNDO 2025, karlsruhe.digital set the tone beyond the city limits in the summer. A separate delegation from Karlsruhe traveled to Stuttgart together, not as a classic excursion, but as a deliberately designed format in which exchange and content-related impulses already began on the journey. The bus thus became a mobile conference room in which networking, discussions and insights into digital urban development topics took center stage.
In Stuttgart, the delegation encountered a new event format that combined a conference, clubhouse and festival. For karlsruhe.digital, the focus was less on the event itself and more on a change of perspective: an external view of future topics such as transformation, education, entrepreneurship and urban development and the question of what impetus can be brought back to Karlsruhe.
UNESCO City of Media Arts: art, technology and urban space
Schlosslichtspiele: Science as media art
With the Schlosslichtspiele 2025, Karlsruhe once again became visible as a UNESCO City of Media Arts in late summer. Under the motto “The Shining Lights of Science”, the festival combined media art, science and technology and placed the 200th anniversary of the KIT in an artistic context. The projections on the palace façade translated scientific questions into visual and acoustic experiences and made it possible to experience research in public space. Supplemented by contributions from international artists, installations outside the palace grounds and the ZKM Summer School, it became clear how media art in Karlsruhe is not understood as an individual event, but as part of a growing cultural infrastructure.
FLORA MOMENTUM: AI art in everyday urban life
FLORA MOMENTUM on Stephanplatz set a different artistic tone. The installation by the ato collective used AI-generated imagery to temporarily transform a previously functional passageway into a space for relaxation and reflection. Art was not staged here, but integrated into everyday life and the urban space as an impulse for new perspectives on the city, nature and technology. In cooperation with urban programs, FLORA MOMENTUM showed how artistic practice can contribute to urban development. The fact that the project was later also presented at the InnovationFestival @karlsruhe.digital underlined the claim to think art, digital transformation and social issues together.
A stage for regional innovation: the InnovationFestival 2025
The Digital Year 2025 culminated in the InnovationFestival at the ZKM in October. For the fourth time, karlsruhe.digital offered digital innovations from Karlsruhe and the Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion a big stage with this format.
The InnovationFestival is no longer a replacement event for the Bunte Nacht der Digitalisierung. It is a carefully curated brand format: ten pitches, ten minutes, clear topics. Instead of a trade fair atmosphere, the focus here is on content-related discussion. It showcases what is being created in the region – by start-ups, research institutions and companies that are already using digital innovations in everyday life and thus shaping the digital transformation far beyond the city limits.
This year, a topic that goes beyond the festival became particularly tangible: digital sovereignty. The keynote set a clear framework and made it clear that digitalization is not just about efficiency or the pace of innovation, but also about self-determination, control over data and the question of how a sustainable digital society can be shaped.
The subsequent pitches remained consistently practical. They showed autonomous scanning robots in retail, AI assistants in everyday clinical practice, semantic product searches in online retail, modular systems for local medicine production and new ways to digitally secure and pass on knowledge. These technical perspectives were complemented by artistic approaches that see digitalization as a social mirror.
Once again, visitors to the ZKM and online experienced what characterizes the InnovationFestival: a deliberate selection, regional roots and the aspiration to show innovation in an applicable rather than abstract way. For karlsruhe.digital, the festival is therefore more than just an event. It is a place where the diversity and connectivity of digital innovation from Karlsruhe becomes visible.
What remains of 2025?
Looking back, 2025 was not a year of individual lighthouses, but one of connections. Between science and the city, between technology and society, between established institutions and new initiatives. Karlsruhe has shown that it is a relevant digital location, a place where real innovation is created and where digitalization is seen as a driver for a sovereign and sustainable society.
karlsruhe.digital continues to see itself as a platform and networker: as a space in which digital industry players can come together, ideas can become visible and joint projects can emerge.
None of this would be possible without the many partners, institutions, initiatives and people who helped shape 2025 – at hackathons, workshops, conferences, festivals and discussions.
We would like to thank everyone who has shaped this year and wish you a relaxing Christmas season. Here’s to a year 2026 that builds on these experiences.
Your team from karlsruhe.digital 🎄✨