From 14 to 16 May 2025, 42 Switzerland organised a hackathon for start-ups for the University of St. Gallen’s incubator, HSG Entrepreneurship. The evenz brought together 16 tech talents with six start-ups from the Entrepreneurial Talents Programme of the University of St.Gallen. The aim: to develop digital solutions together and explore new forms of collaboration.
Coding, raclette and interdisciplinary relationships
The 42 students had to understand and realise the individual wishes of the start-ups within two days. And all teams mastered this challenge with flying colours. The final pitches showcased an impressive range – from fully operational websites to sophisticated user interfaces backed by complex systems. The jury was impressed by the quality and quantity that was created in a very short space of time. An alumnus of the incubator of the University of St.Gallen even said that he wished the hackathon had taken place last year when he was part of it 🙂
During the process, the start-ups collaborated with the 42 Lausanne students, helped them with questions and some even practised their pitches together. This allowed the 42 Switzerland students to benefit from the HSG’s famous presentation skills ☺️
This is how the hackathon went
After the participants arrived, there was an introduction to the hackathon and a Q&A session. A joint dinner provided an opportunity for the teams to exchange ideas and get to know each other before the actual work began. The second day was the official start of the hackathon, followed by intensive hacking sessions. Dinner with raclette straight from Lausanne, prepared by our CEO 42 Switzerland, rounded off the day.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/henry-mueller/The last day was characterised by fine-tuning and pitch training. The presentations of the 42 Lausanne students and the jury evaluation with Maria-Luisa Fuchs (Co-Head Entrepreneurship & Innovation Centre), Henry Müller (Founder of Fourtyfour) and Simon Mayer (Prof. Dr. Ordinarius für Interaction and Communication based Systems at the School of Computer Science), took place in the afternoon. Bastian Schmid, Troy Moeller, Bastian Schnitzler who had worked for the startup Fraction5, founded by Yanis Kägi, Finn Kämpfer and Leon Barmettler, won the hackathon competition. At the subsequent aperitif – of course with wine that our 42 Switzerland CEO, Christophe Wagnière, brought directly from Lausanne – everyone rounded off the successful days and enjoyed the exchange and the newly formed relationships.
Experiences of the participants
The participants had diverse and enriching experiences during the hackathon. Many of them emphasised the positive team dynamic and the pleasant work flow that allowed everyone to contribute their strengths. Another person added: “Great! Our founders were present the whole time and we worked together as a real team.”
The learning experiences were equally diverse. Some participants learnt how to bring elements together to create a complete interactive app, while others recognised the importance of passion and dedication when starting a business. One participant shared: “Taking it step by step and learning new aspects of coding. I’ve never worked with the stack we use before.”
Of course, there were also suggestions for improvement. Some participants wanted the hackathon to be extended to allow more time for conceptual work, team building and sleep. Another suggestion concerned the catering, with more vegetables being requested.
Successful pilot project
This hackathon was more than just a creative format – it was a proof of concept for a long-term partnership between HSG Entrepreneurship and 42 Switzerland. Cristina Bucher, Director of 42 Zurich, explained: “If this experiment succeeds, it could lead to a dedicated 42 Campus in St. Gallen for start-ups in the long term.”
The focus was not on competition or end products, but on teamwork, a variety of perspectives and real-life application scenarios. The participants brought different methodological approaches – from entrepreneurial thinking to technical implementation – and complemented each other in agile teams.
This hackathon has shown that working with 42 Switzerland doesn’t just mean another tech school or more students. The students of 42 Lausanne have proven that they can achieve a great deal under great time pressure and always remain professional despite little sleep. They are flexible and can familiarise themselves with new topics very quickly. Not only did they only know the topics of the start-ups briefly, but they also worked on German projects, even though French is their native language, and then communicated with the start-ups in English.
All the words we use in marketing pitches to describe our students: resilient, hard-working, down-to-earth, motivated, willing to learn, open-minded, practical were literally shown in two days in live.
This hackathon was a great success and an important step towards a sustainable collaboration between 42 Switzerland and HSG Entrepreneurship. Thanks for the great collaboration! We look forward to future projects and the further development of this partnership. The next ETP hackathon is planned for October 2026.
Who was there
The students of 42 Lausanne worked for or with the start-ups of the University of St.Gallen. The teams were as follows: lkay Yanar and Fabien Clivaz created a completely new backend for Bloem (Sophia Haas), Bastian Schmid, Troy Moeller, Bastian Schnitzler for Fraction 5 (Yanis Kägi, Finn Kämpfer, Leon Barmettler), Maxime Martin, Hugo Cavet and emify.ai (Pranvera Rasaj, Luca Grand, Istenc A), Marco Belarbi and Kevin Mendes for Logistion (Nils Josef Hofmann), Eric Sélim, Alex Letondor, Ewa Przybyla for RDY (Kujtesta, Cedric Huber, Connor Ingleson) and Dianka Matayi, Isaiah Robinson and Cyril Gross for ReGym (Louis Sele & Andrin Benz).
The 42 Vibe
Impressions on social media
