Tapia 2025 had its first Generative AI Student Hackathon, which was organized by a committee consisting of the following members: Matthew Dearing, (University of Illinois Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory), Dena Mwangi (Recurse Center), Jose Diaz (AMD), Cory Buls (GXA), Michael Kennard (GXA), Ben Carter (GXA), and Valerie Taylor (Argonne National Laboratory/CMD-IT). The Hackathon was developed to meet the following two goals:
- Provide an opportunity for students to gain experience while having fun using GenAI to develop a solution to a provided challenge problem
- Work with a team of students from different universities, different backgrounds, and different skills
The GenAI Hackathon brought together 100 student conference attendees for four hours of creativity, collaboration, and AI innovation. Students worked in unique teams of 6–8 members, with no more than two students from the same institution and no more than two graduate students.
Each team developed an innovative solution to one of 11 challenge problems, impressing a panel of industry and academic judges with their original, functional prototypes. The judges included the following: Matthew Dearing (University of Illinois Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory), Dena Mwangi (Recurse Center), Cory Buls (GXA), Michael Kennard (GXA), Ben Carter (GXA), Angela Nauden (Retired), Shukri Abotteen (Purdue University Northwest), Julien Sanchez (Google), Lauren Slane (University of North Carolina at Charlotte), Dale-Marie Wilson (University of North Carolina at Charlotte), Nicholas Ahring (Fidelity Investments) and Eric Betties (University of North Carolina at Charlotte).
The teams provided videos of their working solutions that incorporated unique ideas, many of which can be the start of viable products. Each member of the winning teams received $100 for their outstanding creativity and technical excellence.
The Hackathon was more than a competition – it was a celebration of creative and innovative applications using Generative AI. We look forward to continuing this momentum with the Generative AI Student Hackathon returning for Tapia 2026!
Congratulations to all the brilliant participants and to the following 2025 GenAI Hackathon winners!
The Blue Bears (Team 14) built a smart social network to personalize campus life. Congratulations to the Blue Bears Team: Thabhelo Duve (Talladega College), Arda Hoke (UC Berkeley), Vedant Kulkarni (Syracuse University) and Cory Tamburrino (University of San Diego).
Team SAM (Team 25) created an interactive meal planner for dietary needs. Congratulations to Team SAM: Aibek Abasov (National Louis University), Vinita Acharya (New Jersey Institute of Technology), Ronald Deng (Williams College), Sree Lasya Gogineni (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), Jeet Mehta (University of Wisconsin Madison), Arun Prasadh (Syracuse University), and Shaniah Reece (Emory University).
Job Hackers (Team 27) developed Job Genie, a Chrome extension to simplify job applications. Congratulations to The Job Hackers Team: Muhammed Ahmed (Bucknell University), Aayusha Dhungana (Tennessee State University), Sriharshini Dusi (University of California, Davis), Alice Li (University of California, Berkeley), Navaraj Panday (Fisk University), Truc Tran (University of California, Berkeley), Samuel Tuffour (Bucknell University), and Jenna Tumlos (University of San Diego).
Abstractly (Team 29) enabled natural language Q&A for research papers. Congratulations to The Abstractly Team: Adachukwu Anya (Drexel University), Rachel Harris (Alabama A&M University), Kailer Laino (The University of Texas at Austin), Aarushi Lakhi (The University of Texas at Austin), Sophie Mansoor (Duke University), Pratyush Sudhakar (Cornell University), My Tran (Georgia Gwinnett College), and Victorine Younang (Oakland University).