Borders are everywhere. Some are composed of concrete and barbed wire, others of bureaucracy, protocols or poorly documented APIs. Some protect, others exclude. And still others exist only because no one has yet attempted to overcome them. But not all borders are meant to be crossed or even breached. Just as private data must be protected, personal boundaries must always be respected and defended.

In computer science, boundaries are constantly shifting: computing power is growing, networks are becoming denser, systems more complex. At the same time, new limitations are emerging: artificial limits created by proprietary platforms, regulatory hurdles, over‑burdened infrastructures or security models that block more than they protect. Anyone who wants to understand how technology and society work must recognize these borders, analyse them and, occasionally, elegantly circumvent them.

Borders are also a perennial topic in society. States create arbitrary barriers; with information, we can overcome them. Technologies connect people across continents and at the same time create new digital divides. While some try to let knowledge, software and communication flow freely, others build new walls of DRM, geo-blocking or national firewalls.

The MRMCD Academy for Applied Border Crossing is therefore looking for people who investigate, shift or creatively overcome frontiers. We welcome talks and workshops on topics such as:

• IT security, privacy and security research, including them to protect personal boundaries

• open technologies, interoperability, and digital sovereignty

• eGovernment, infrastructure and public IT

• Network policy, censorship, surveillance, and freedom of information

• Hardware, software, and protocol hacking

• or anything else that moves people close to chaos

Whether you are pushing technical limits, analysing social barriers or finding new ways across old borders: if you have something exciting to tell or show, we want to hear about it.

Overcome your own limits and submit your contributions!

Submissions close on 2026-07-01 02:00 (Europe/Berlin), 2 months, 2 weeks from now.