Remember as a kid when the world was full of questions? As adults we sometimes think we have it all figured out, and it blinds us to new opportunities. This also happens on an industry level.
Imagine an engineering company has a design problem on their website. Visitors can't find what they're looking for, so they go to the competitor instead. The company thinks design is easy, so they hire a software engineer to solve it by adding a few more pages. It doesn't fix the underlying problem. What they actually need is a designer to look at the website — which would stop them from losing visitors and maybe even take a few from their competitors. But the company is unaware of their own lack of design skills. It's their website, so they're probably the best people for the job. A designer would just be a waste of resources, right?
This effect is called unconscious incompetence, and it creates homogenous teams. Imagine if Apple had only ever consisted of engineers. Phones would look very different today.
We believe Denmark's tech industry can be much more innovative and impactful if companies and people learn what other disciplines bring to the table.
So we're building a tech community that gives people a space to collaborate across disciplines. A space where ideas, individuals and skillsets collide to create something unexpected. A space to learn about our unique advantages and our deficiencies. A space where engineering companies find out what they're missing when they don't work with designers.
We think that's the key to great inventions.
RoyalHacks is Denmark's first national university hackathon. We had our debut event in spring 2026, and we're already planning RoyalHacks 2027.
Before we go any further, you should know that "hacking" is a slang for building creative solutions. Not to be confused with the same word from the world of cybersecurity.
Here's how it works. We bring together students from across the country for one weekend of intense, fun collaboration and problem-solving. Students form groups of up to four people. We present a set of open-ended challenges for them to build solutions for — these are what we call tracks, and each track has a prize. Tracks are designed by us in collaboration with our corporate partners.
Students then have 24 hours to come up with the best idea they can and building it into a real, functional product. It's a tall order but most students make it. It’s also enormously fun for everyone involved.
In parallel with the 24 hours of hacking, we run a series of knowledge breaks: short, practical crash courses in useful tools that students can use directly in their projects or on their résumés. Knowledge breaks are hosted by skilled and inspiring professionals who have taken less traditional paths to design their careers.
When the 24 hours are up, every group presents to our panel of judges, who select a winner in each track. Winning teams take home prizes.
Through collaboration, students learn what makes them unique and valuable in a team. They also learn of things that other students can do which they couldn't have imagined themselves. Designers learn how important engineers are. Engineers learn how important designers are. Meanwhile our corporate partners are standing there thinking "holy moly, these kids are good. What do they study?"
And there's a second half to this that most people don't see. RoyalHacks isn't only for the students who show up to the event. It's also for the people who build it. The thing we're trying to give participants — responsibility, exposure to disciplines you know nothing about, work you're not obviously qualified for yet — is the same thing we try to give the team. Most of what you'll do here, you'll be doing for the first time. That isn't a bug in how we're organised. It's the point.