Hey, dear reader!
Thanks to your feedback, I've moved this newsletter to 7 am, so you can read it and plan your week before the day gets busy.
While browsing events for this week's list, I found three hackathons: one on GEO, one on defence, one on AI. All within the next four weeks, which is unseen in the history of this newsletter and honestly super cool. I mean, who doesn't like a good hackathon? :)
First up is the GEO Hackathon Hamburg on August 27, where you can build a content pipeline that AI systems actually cite. It runs in German, and you're best off coming as a team of two or three.
The next day, the European Defense Tech Hackathon takes over the whole weekend: dual-use and defence challenges, hackers from across Europe, and a demo day on Sunday.
Then in mid-September comes the AI.WOMEN Hackathon, for teams of up to five, female mentors throughout, and a spot at AI.SUMMIT for the best teams.
Creating a hackathon is A LOT of work. I've co-hosted one and know first-hand how much there is to take care of. Location, logistics, partners, volunteers... As a community, I think it’s our job to support the hosts as best as we can.
So if you've got a sponsor or partner in mind for the defence hackathon, reach out to Benjamin. And if you'd rather see the AI.WOMEN Hackathon from behind the scenes and help the team run it, talk to Katharina.
If you're looking for a team, or want to sharpen a problem for one of the hackathons, come join our next Co-working Day, next Monday. Founders, engineers, AI folks, product managers and designers will all be there. And you should too!
found community 🤝
Our WhatsApp group for Hamburg founders and operators.
Need an intro, a first hire, or an honest second opinion? Just ask in the community.
Save the Date 🗓️
The events I'm most excited about in the weeks ahead.
Monday, August 24
Co-working Day (English) — Work alongside other founders and operators. No membership and no application, just drop in.
Monday, August 24
Deep Tech Club Fireside Chat with Prof. Angela Relógio (English) — Hear how TimeTeller turned circadian-rhythm research into a company, straight from the founder-scientist.
Wednesday, August 26
Autonomous Intelligence Forum #2 (German) — Work through what rising machine autonomy means for responsibility and regulation across keynotes and hands-on workshops.
Thursday, August 27
1st Hamburg Hardware Meetup (English) — Meet the people building physical products in Hamburg at the first edition of a hardware-focused meetup co-hosted by Impossible Founders.
Thursday, September 3
LangChain Meetup: Building Great Agents (English) — Get into what separates an agent that works from a demo that does not, with the people shipping them.
Weekly Picks 📍
All the events on my radar for this week.
This Issue’s Gem 💎
Monday, August 17
Start-up Info Day (German) — Get the full picture of what founding in Hamburg actually requires, from legal form to financing, in one free session.
AI Everywhere 🤖
Tuesday, August 18
MAKE AI WORK Monthly Meetup #1 (German) — Swap real AI implementation experience with founders and operators in a first edition built on practice, not buzzwords.
Wednesday, August 19
Mutabor BrandTalk: AI Labelling (German) — Unpack what mandatory AI labelling means for brands and creative work with people who deal with it daily.
Wednesday, August 19
Agentic Engineering Night (German) — Dig into how agentic systems are actually built and run in production with engineers doing the work.
Thursday, August 20
AI Afterwork (German) — Talk AI over food and drinks on a rooftop with the city's practitioners as the summer evening cools off.
Tech Bite 🧑💻
Monday, August 17
n8n Hamburg Meetup (English) — Trade real automation workflows with the people running n8n in production, from small internal hacks to full agent pipelines.
Startup 101 🔨
Monday, August 17
Tax Basics for Founders (German) — Work through the tax obligations that hit in your first year, so the first letter from the Finanzamt is not a surprise.
Tuesday, August 18
Life Cycle Assessment: Making Sustainability Measurable (German) — Turn product and process data into defensible environmental impact figures with an LCA specialist walking through the standards.
Friday, August 21
build fridays (English) — Work on your startup alongside other founders for the afternoon and end the week with real progress instead of a to-do list.
Get Inspired ✨
Wednesday, August 19
Impact Lunch: Körber Start-Hub Edition (German) — Meet young impact founders over a vegan lunch that opens with a short talk and turns into open exchange.
Saturday, August 22
Founders Running Club x impossible Founders: Deep Tech Edition (English) — Run an easy 5K with deep tech founders and researchers, with a shorter option and coffee once everyone is back.
Open Calls 📣
Grants, programs, and opportunities waiting for your application.
Mission: Deutschland, was geht? — For interdisciplinary teams that want to fix German bureaucracy from the inside. SPRIND and the federal digital ministry are backing up to 20 teams with €25,000 each, equity-free, to get a prototype tested in a real administrative setting, with up to €100,000 each for the five strongest teams after that. Fourteen problem areas, drawn from what nearly 28,000 citizens submitted. Move fast on this one. Deadline: August 20.
SPRIND Next Frontier Robotics — For teams building robots that work outside the lab. Up to €7.2M per team as a non-dilutive fixed-price contract, either for a full robot platform aimed at logistics, care support or construction, or for the breakthrough hardware components underneath one. Applications open today. Deadline: October 22.
Norddeutscher Zukunftspreis für Künstliche Intelligenz — For solo founders, tech startups and AI-minded SMEs anywhere in northern Germany. €10,000 in prize money, equity-free, and the application is a single email covering your idea, the benefit it delivers and where the build currently stands. Awarded on stage at the Woche der KI in Lübeck on November 11. Deadline: September 30.
Job Picks 💼
3 open roles worth a look this week.
Senior/Staff Backend Engineer at akeno, an AI startup building real-time production scheduling for process manufacturing.
Senior Strategy & Operations Manager at plancraft, an AI- first operating system for trades, scaling across Europe.
Founder's Associate Intern at Patterno, an AI startup aggregating public tenders from 4,500+ European procurement portals.
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That’s a wrap!
Check out the tune of the week from the found playlist
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Share found Hamburg with your friends
See you next week,
Kyrylo from found Hamburg