7/7/2026
27,707 SUBMISSIONS - NOW IT'S GERMANY'S TURN TO DECIDE
Voting begins for the citizen hackathon
Nearly 28,000 citizens reported what frustrates them most about bureaucracy and government agencies during the first half of the year. Until July 19, anyone interested can help decide which issues the federal administration should tackle first. Together with the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs (BMDS), SPRIND is launching the voting phase of Germany, What's Next?, the first citizen hackathon aimed at directly improving government services.
Nearly 28,000 submissions show just how strong the desire for a simpler government is. Tens of thousands of everyday experiences are coming together to form a shared mission for Germany's most innovative teams — working together for greater simplicity.
- Jeannette Gusko, Head of Digital Participation at SPRIND
The basis for the vote is SPRIND's Germany Report: All submissions were analyzed using an AI-assisted process. The result was 265 opinion clusters, ranging from overarching themes of government modernization to specialized topics such as reducing bureaucracy in agriculture or consumer protection.
Selected report findings:
- Broad participation: People from all 16 federal states and 301 of 400 counties participated, 41.8% of them from outside major cities.
- A unified opinion: Administrative processes must be fully digital, seamless across systems, and available from any location.
- Think new, don't just optimize: Numerous existing administrative procedures need to be fundamentally rethought.
The full Germany Report is available on the Germany, What's Next? website.
The result is 13 challenges that combine societal relevance, innovation potential, and political feasibility. These include everyday issues such as finding the right government agency or the problem that official notices and forms sound like a foreign language, even though plain language could prevent many errors and frustrations. Other challenges include the too-slow recognition of degrees and qualifications, as well as the question of how new technology can be tested faster in government.
The prioritization of challenges forms the foundation for the subsequent mission: Interdisciplinary teams from technology, science, government, and civil society are called upon to develop concrete innovations.
The most compelling approaches will receive funding for a three-month prototype phase, mentoring, and the opportunity to present their solutions to a jury. At the end of the year, the most promising approaches will have the chance to deliver a Minister Pitch
to select the solutions to be integrated into the federal administration in 2027.
The Germany Report and the opportunity to vote are now available at deutschland-was-geht.org.
