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WeatherGenerator

WeatherGenerator Community Hackathon

26–28 January 202709:00 - 15:00, GMT+01:00 Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany

About

WeatherGenerator Community Hackathon

Join our first Community Hackathon and become part of the WeatherGenerator collective!

The WeatherGenerator project will host its first Community Hackathon on 26–28 January 2027 in Jena, Germany. This in-person, hands-on event will bring together researchers and professionals working across Earth System sciences to explore the WeatherGenerator, exchange ideas and become part of its growing community. The goal is that each participating team can run and fine-tune the WeatherGenerator for its own application while learning from and contributing to the community around the open-source model.

This will be a three-day event starting at 09:00 on 26 January and closing at 15:00 on 28 January. Registration will be open from 1 September until 1 November 2026

This programme is preliminary and subject to change.

Event Program

Tuesday, 26 January 2027

09:00 – 09:30 Registration and coffee

09:30 – 10:00 Welcome, introduction to the WeatherGenerator project, setting the stage

10:00 – 11:15 Central introduction: the WeatherGenerator core model — architecture, training approach and capabilities

11:15 – 11:45 Coffee break

11:45 – 13:00 Tutorial: data formats, pretrained checkpoints, compute environment and fine-tuning workflow

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

14:00 – 15:30 Team presentations - each team introduces its application (approx. 5+3 minutes per team)

15:30 – 16:00 Coffee break

16:00 – 18:00 Hacking session I - environment and data set-up, mentors available

18:30 Ice breaker and welcome reception at MPI-BGC

Wednesday, 27 January 2027

09:00 – 09:15 Daily briefing

09:15 – 12:30 Hacking session II (coffee break in between)

12:30 – 13:30 Lunch

13:30 – 15:30 Hacking session III

15:30 – 16:45 Coffee break and guided tour of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry

16:45 – 18:00 Hacking session IV (optional / open lab)

19:30 Hackathon dinner in Jena city centre (self-pay)

Thursday, 28 January 2027

09:00 – 12:00 Final hacking session and preparation of team presentations (coffee break in between)

12:00 – 13:00 Lunch

13:00 – 14:30 Final presentations and demos from all teams, with feedback from core developers and application scientists

14:30 – 15:00 Wrap-up: lessons learned, follow-up opportunities and closing remarks

15:00 Adjourn

Requirements

  • Team of 2–5 people from a research institute, national meteorological or hydrological service, agency, SME or industry
  • Working in weather, climate, water, energy, agriculture, ecosystems or health
  • A well-defined target application (e.g. forecasting for a country, downscaling a variable over a region, or an impact variable relevant to your sector)
  • Application data prepared in advance where possible
  • Familiarity with Python and machine learning
  • No prior experience with foundation models or the WeatherGenerator required
  • One registration submitted per team, describing the application, available data and format, ML experience, any prior contact with the WeatherGenerator, proposed members and any need for travel support