Data Under Threat — Join the Data Rescue Hackathon

When: Thursday, 7 August, 2025 16:00-19:00
Where: Leopoldstr. 13, 80802 München 
Registration Link: https://surveys.osc.lmu.de/safeguard-hackathon

The Trump administration has aggressively removed scientific and governmental research data from public access, purging thousands of web pages and datasets related to climate, health, demographics, LGBTQ + issues, and more — silently erasing vital knowledge that underpins scientific progress.

While some European institutions start backing up at-risk research data, the data rescue movement is driven by grassroots efforts like the "Data Rescue Project" and the "Safeguarding Research & Culture" initiative, who have mobilized volunteers, librarians, and scientists to download and archive these resources before they are lost forever

Join the LMU Open Science Center Safeguar.de Hackathon

At this hands-on event, we welcome Henrik Schönemann (HU Berlin), an initiator of safeguar.de, for an ignition talk. In the practical part, we will directly support the data rescue efforts:

• Learn & Build: Install a BitTorrent client on your own machine to seed and safeguard critical research datasets. Scrape at-risk data sets.
• Repurpose Old Hardware: Turn old 2.5" HDDs, Raspberry Pis, or laptops into dedicated data rescue nodes by installing Linux and setting up archiving tools.
• Improve Tools & Docs: Write better documentation and develop one-click installation scripts to simplify deployment on any system.

Open to Everyone — Not Just Coders

While some parts are technical, we welcome everyone to contribute to: Outreach, documentation, coordination, creative ideas.

Let’s work together to preserve scientific knowledge and build a resilient, community-powered data infrastructure.

You can contribute to the project by ...

• Donating old hardware and/or
• Attending the Hackathon
• participating in the discussions