BrainHack Kraków 2026 – a summary

Before we look back on the past weekend: our thoughts are with the victims of Saturday’s tragedy in the Main Market Square, their loved ones and everyone affected. We share in the grief of the people of Kraków.

On 7–8 November, the @Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University hosted the Kraków edition of BrainHack – an event that is part of the international BrainHack Global network. Over two days, students, PhD candidates and researchers took part in lectures, workshops and meetings. We heard talks by our guests: Prof. Daniel Margulies (University of Oxford), Prof. Lune Bellec (Université de Montréal), Dr Kamil Fuławka (Max Planck Institute) and Dr Daria Hemmerling (AGH University of Krakow), as well as pitch talks by early-career researchers.

Participants worked in one of two tracks:

– the beginner track – introductory workshops in programming, computational neuroscience and computational psychology, designed for those studying psychology and related fields. The sessions covered the basics of speech-to-text processing and data analysis, and ended with a short project combining both topics;

– the advanced track – two project groups working with real neuroscience data:

• “Modelling cognitive processes using deep convolutional neural networks”, led by Wiktor Więcławski,

• “SemCoupling: linking brain and behaviour to cognitive state during naturalistic experiences”, led by Michał Domagała.

At the end, the advanced-track teams presented the results of their projects and received awards. A prize also went to the best presentation in the pitch-talk session.

We would like to thank the participants, the scientific committee, speakers, group leaders and student science clubs (@SDNS UJ, @KNSP UJ, @KNSK UJ, @Game Dev UJ, @AI MED AGH, @KNSB “In Silico” UJ) for co-creating the event, and the scientific director, Prof. Michał Wierzchoń, and Dr Jan K. Argasiński for their academic guidance. We also thank the City of Kraków, our Conference Partner, for its support under the Kraków Scientific Conferences initiative. We are also grateful to the Brain Research Centre (CBM), Jagiellonian University, and the Department of Cognitive Science, Jagiellonian University, for supporting the event.

Learn more about Kraków as a city of science: www.dlabiznesu.krakow.pl/nauka | facebook.com/BiznesiNaukawKrakowie

Organiser: Sano Centre for Computational Medicine

Co-organiser: Jagiellonian University | Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University

Conference Partner: City of Kraków

Supported by: Brain Research Centre (CBM), Jagiellonian University | Department of Cognitive Science, Jagiellonian University

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