FOSS Data and Design Hackathon 2025
7th - 11th April, The Wave

Data & Design Hackathon - Update

We have now finally concluded the first ever Data and Design Hackathon, an event which offers a unique opportunity for students across all diciplines to collaborate, innovate and come up with creative solutions to real-world problems. For 3 days, students from all across the university and particularly the Social Sciences at The University of Sheffield formed multidisciplinary teams to solve problems proposed by colleagues from a range of different sectors. Solutions varied from data science to design projects and teams explored a range of technical and socio-technical solutions including generative AI. On the final day, teams presented their solutions as a 5 minute lightning talk and a poster, both of which were assessed. 

A huge thank you to all our project owners and judges - thank you for your valuable support and help in bringing such interesting problems to our teams - Will Deakin, Ziqi Zhang, Philip Webster, Gavin Boyce, Abdul-Qadeer Khan, Dale Sparks, Jay Bangle, Guifré Ballesté Santacana, Vania Sena, Stanislava Naneva. Thank you to Chris Dymond, Abdul-Qadeer Khan and Tom Wolfenden for your support with Sheffield Digital, South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority and Sheffield Technology Parks in the form of sponsoring awards and dissemination support. Thank you also Neda Azarmehr for your support in mentoring the teams. 

The Hackathon concluded with prize ceremony, with the following awards: 

• First Prize and South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority Award - South Yorkshire Flow (Britiparni Biswas, Taha Khan, Abbey Baumguertel, Rajita Ghosh, Roshni Parekh)

• Second Prize - Eco-Go (Nur Farhazni Najwa Binti Farhan, Asti Dhiya Anzaria, Tom Miller, Irene konadu, Brandon Rawson)

• Third Prize - Trackside North (Nada Katamish, Richard Beaumont, Soki Kimura, Oluwatobiloba Olasogba, Abuduwaili Mijiti)

• Most creative solution towards a sustainable future - EcoLogic (Janhavi Pawar, Muhamad Irfan Bin Muhd Ramiza, Silu Yu, Jie Cai, Shixiong Xu)

• Ethical Innovation Award - Rubik’s Cube (Shristi Adhikari, Areez Muhammed, Kulisara Kittivibul, Seadon Rodrigues, Aparna Swaminathan)

• South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority Award Joint Runners Up - Sheffield Sims 5 (Bianca Sevidal, Poppy Dobson, Aaron Poh Shi Da, Sumit Mishra, Sanchaya Sathishkumar Deepa) and Eco-Go (Nur Farhazni Najwa Binti Farhan, Asti Dhiya Anzaria, Tom Miller, Irene konadu, Brandon Rawson)

• Best Data Driven Policy Project (Sheffield Technology Parks Award) - Sheffield Sims 5 (Bianca Sevidal, Poppy Dobson, Aaron Poh Shi Da, Sumit Mishra, Sanchaya Sathishkumar Deepa) 

• Best Poster - Big Bird (Askar Kazhybay, Ahmed Abdullah Y Al Yafeai, Jane Podmoloda, Varvara Kurianova, Veronika Redziuk, Laylo Mirdjalilova)

• Best Presentation - Team 404 Probation Not Found (Nitkamon Iamprasertkun, Keivalin Saringkareekul, Aziq Azlan, Muhammad Faiz)

This project was funded by Campaigns and Alumni Relations team at the The University of Sheffield - a huge thanks for your support!