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Data and Design Hackathon celebrates emerging talent in Sheffield

by Claire Fletcher

This multidisciplinary event revealed the strength, creativity and increasingly sophisticated concepts from students at the University of Sheffield.

As sponsors and dissemination partners, Sheffield Digital was proud to support this year’s Data and Design Hackathon, delivered by one of our Ecosystem Partners, the University of Sheffield.

Framed as “a multidisciplinary, inclusive, values-driven hackathon,” the 2026 event saw fantastic engagement from students across three faculties, with over 100 registrations spanning 14 Schools and 35 programmes, from undergraduate through to PhD level. Across the four-day event, 65 students formed 14 teams to design and build innovative, data-driven solutions, culminating in a lively final and prize ceremony.

Chris Dymond, Co-founder and one of our directors here at Sheffield Digital, took part in the judging of the event. He reflects, “Judging was incredibly hard, and the panel took a long time to agree. It’s really interesting to see how increasingly polished the proof of concept solutions are getting each year! Teams can build so much more in just three days than used to be the case, and the results are more refined, and very impressive too.”

The four-day multidisciplinary event saw 65 students form 14 teams to design and build innovative, data-driven solutions.

Award winners

  • First prize & People’s Choice Award: LibrAIs (Toghrul Mustafali, Emil Niyazov, Khalil Alakbarzade, Aliakbar Rzayev)
  • Second prize: SheffTrack (Zayna Sheikh, Marsha Florence Osita, Mookaney Amal Zia, Chidindu Agbanelo)
  • Third prize & Best Presentation: 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)
  • 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).

Well done all!

The hackathon continues to highlight the strength of Sheffield’s student talent pipeline and the value of collaboration between academia and the city’s tech community. The project was funded by the Centre for Machine Intelligence at the University of Sheffield and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

You can read about the event and see more images over on the dedicated webpage.