CorrelCon 2025 - 10 years of CorrelAid: Data4Good, community and anniversary celebration

🎈 A weekend full of highlights

After CorrelCon, we asked each other: What was your highlight? And no one had THE answer. Because there were simply too many special moments, big and small, that weekend. And since this blog could theoretically go on forever, but attention spans are not quite so infinite, here are a few selected impressions that particularly stuck in our minds:

✨ 3 days of Data4Good: workshops, discussions, and small talks on the side

On Saturday and Sunday, everything revolved around data science, tech, and engagement – with diverse sessions and lively discussions:

Data4Good projects in focus

We gained exciting insights into both recently completed and current projects, from dashboard development for Offener Kanal Merseburg, to LLM-based text analysis for the Babylotse project, to automated evaluations for the mentoring organization Sindbad. It became clear that good scoping, transparent communication with NPOs, and expectation management are key to project success.

Hands-on Tech and Tools

In several sessions, participants explored DuckDB, Python dependency management with uv, and data validation in Python. The session on Svelte and Marimo showed how data can be prepared for the web in a barrier-free, high-performance, and accessible way, and inspired participants to try out new things right away. At the same time, the workshop on UX for data scientists highlighted the importance of taking the time to understand the challenge and sketch out the idea before starting development.

Data Literacy and Open Data

With the “Datenatlas Zivilgesellschaft“, the Bertelsmann Foundation presented its new metadata portal for open data from the non-profit sector, including a demo and discussion on opportunities, obstacles, and further development. The Ethical Book Club provided a space for critical exchange on AI, regulation, and social responsibility. Together, we discussed the risks of generative AI, power structures, and how public welfare-oriented engagement can counteract purely profit-oriented developments.

✨ We have a fantastic community!

Obviously, we already knew that, but seeing how warmly everyone greeted each other on Friday evening (regardless of whether they had been with us since the beginning or had only joined CorrelAid a week ago) and how difficult it was to interrupt conversations for a quick hello proved once again that we have a great community!  Whether at breakfast in the youth hostel, on walks by the lake, or over coffee together at Villa Rheinburg, there was plenty of time for personal conversations, reunions with old acquaintances, and getting to know new faces. Some participants met for the first time outside of Slack, while others celebrated their personal 10-year CorrelAid anniversary.

✨ 12 hours of conference not enough: anniversary evening on Saturday

Saturday evening was all about “10 years of CorrelAid”: with a champagne reception, improv theater, a look back at the association's history, and a panel discussion on the topic of "Idea. Iteration. Impact." Even after a long conference day, the discussions and celebrations continued – the reserved seats weren't even enough...

✨ CorrelAid can be puzzled

On Friday evening, small groups worked on puzzles. The goal: an overview of all current Data4Good projects, the CorrelAidX logo with our local groups, and much more. And along the way, we realized once again: involvement with CorrelAid has so many different facets that you always learn new things!

🗣️ Voices from the community

“CorrelAid is such a great environment because there are so many cool people. It sometimes feels a bit like a big get-together among friends.” – Hendrik

💚 Thank you!

This CorrelCon would not have been possible without...

• the session leaders who shared their knowledge and sparked discussions,
• the fantastic organizing team, who spent weeks planning, organizing, and coordinating,
• the exciting city tour of Konstanz and the data walk of Smart Green City Konstanz,
• the financial support from KNIME and GEBIT, who made a weekend of this magnitude possible,
• and of course: all of you, who bring CorrelAid to life with your participation and commitment!

🚀 What's next?

After the last 10 years, we are looking forward to the next 10 years: with new drive for the local groups, new formats such as CorrelLAB, and many more exciting projects, we want to continue making data and data science accessible to civil society in the future.

We look forward to everything that lies ahead!