Data and Design Hackathon 2026
30th March - 2nd April, The Wave

Data & Design Hackathon 2026 Wrap up

We have now finally concluded the Data and Design Hackathon 2026, which offered a unique opportunity for students across all disciplines to collaborate, innovate and come up with creative solutions to real-world problems. The hackathon started with a plenary session as an introduction and then a Design Thinking session masterfully delivered by John McNamara to help students develop problem-focussed solutions. For four days, students from The University of Sheffield formed multidisciplinary teams to solve problems proposed by colleagues and industry experts from a range of different sectors. Solutions varied from data science to design projects, and teams explored and demonstrated a range of technical and socio-technical solutions including AI and using AI in the process. On the final day, teams presented their solutions as a 5 minute lightning talk and a poster, both of which were assessed by our panel.

A huge thank you to all our projects owners and judges - thank you for your valuable support and help in brining such interesting problems to our teams - Will Deakin, Gavin Boyce, Kathryn McKee, Prof. Vania Sena, Guifré Ballesté Santacana, Tom Shaw, and Matthew Milligan. 

Thank you to Sheffield Digital and Sheffield Technology Park in the form of sponsoring awards and dissemination support. Thank you also Suvodeep Mazumdar, Harry Kai-Ho Chan, Neda Azarmehr, and Abdallah Yaghi for your support in mentoring the teams.

The final concluded with a prize ceremony, with the following awards: 

• First prize: LibrAIs (Toghrul Mustafali, Emil Niyazov, Khalil Alakbarzade, Aliakbar Rzayev)

• Second prize: SheffTrack (Zayna Sheikh, Marsha Florence Osita, Mookaney Amal Zia, Chidindu Agbanelo)

• Third prize: Tangerine (Jhoshna Udayakumar, Meena Ramamoorthy, Himanshu Kriplani, Tamanna Mishra, Dat Chi Le) 

• Most creative use of AI: Dynamic Data Troupe (Pavithra Subramanian, Elangovan Murugan, Yadanar May Oo, Abimbola Daniel Aladeitan, Joshua Wodi, Nana Musa)

• Best Data-Driven Project: Stack Orangeflow (Poppy Dobson, Muhammad Afiq Hakimi, Aaron Poh Shi Da, Riddhi Madan Kulkarni, Deborah Adio)

• Best application of Design Thinking: SwimMetrics (Tarun Sridhara, Harsh Tomar, Nishika Thakkar, Iulia Sapungiu, Vedant Ghadigaonkar)

• Most Impactful Solution: Geoforgers (Taiga Roberts, Rakhi Giri, Abishek Ebenezar Ravi, Nana Kwabena Archampong Poku, Gitanjali Yadav, Hania Batool, Priyanshi kataria)

• People's Choice Award: LibrAIs (Toghrul Mustafali, Emil Niyazov, Khalil Alakbarzade, Aliakbar Rzayev)

• Best Presentation: Tangerine (Jhoshna Udayakumar, Meena Ramamoorthy, Himanshu Kriplani, Tamanna Mishra, Dat Chi Le) 

• Best Poster: Sinaran (Amir Haziq Bin Mohamad Azhar, Ak Akmal Fahmi bin Pg Hj Salim, Muizz Adi, Asyraf Johari, Ak Hj Ahmad 'Irfan Danial Pg Hj Irman)

This project was funded by Centre for Machine Intelligence at The University of Sheffield and the EPSRC Talent and Skills Award.