From preserving mental health and simplifying administrative procedures to making language learning easier, a total of twenty-one ideas were presented by Debrecen students at the first-ever “hackAIthon” idea competition, held on Wednesday, May 14, at the University of Debrecen’s Innovation Center.
Exploring the potential of artificial intelligence, students developed novel solutions at the one-day hackathon organized in collaboration with the Innovation Ecosystem Center of the University of Debrecen, the Faculty of Informatics, the Hungarian Startup University Program, and DATA-EDIH. Nearly fifty participants competed in sixteen team and five individual entries.
“Openness, creativity, and sensitivity to problems — with these qualities alone, we can begin exploring AI, which is becoming part of our everyday lives,” said Nóra Kovács, program manager of the Innovation Ecosystem Center, welcoming the students. At the event’s opening, she emphasized that beyond offering professional development, the hackathon also provides participants the experience of shared learning and collaborative thinking.
Throughout the day, staff from the Faculty of Informatics and experts from the Innovation Center mentored the young participants, guiding them from idea development to presenting before the jury.
“Most of the ideas focused on how AI can ease everyday life — whether in healthy eating or personal safety in the online space,” noted Ákos Kiss, innovation manager.
In the individual — “indie hacker” — category, László Adrián Madár, a data science student, won first place with his project titled Paint-by-Numbers from a New Perspective, in which he used AI to experiment with automating art creation. Representing the Faculty of Informatics, Dean András Hajdu and Vice Dean Tamás Bérczes, along with technology managers Veronika Bak and Aletta Ivándel from the Innovation Ecosystem Center, reviewed the sixteen team presentations following the individual category to award the main prizes of HUF 500,000, 300,000, and 200,000, as well as a special prize of HUF 500,000 for the best functional demo.
The first prize went to Faculty of Informatics students Ahed Hatter and Anurag Tiwari of the LC Security team for their app designed to prevent online fraud. Second place was awarded to the Synapz team — comprised of engineering and science students — for their app tackling immigration-related administrative processes on a global scale. Third place went to a team of mechatronics engineering students for their system offering therapeutic solutions to mental health issues. A special prize was given to two medical students, Mihály Székely and Péter Áron Tóth, for their AI-powered application that reimagines the Q&A sessions of conferences.
“We had the chance to meet young people in a truly multidisciplinary and international environment, whose imagination was sparked by the challenges of AI applications. Students came not only from IT but also from engineering, health sciences, and natural sciences — and many of them presented feasible, working ideas. The competition also suggests that, going forward, AI applications will increasingly bring these disciplines closer together,” concluded Dean András Hajdu after the awards ceremony.
In addition to the cash prize, the winning team also received entry tickets to the Craft Conference at the end of May, thanks to CraftHub’s contribution. The Craft Conference is Central and Eastern Europe’s largest international software development conference.
(unideb.hu)
