Microsoft’s AI Classroom Hackathon, a worldwide call for students to build the next generation of intelligent applications using Azure AI and Azure Databases, has officially concluded—and we are thrilled to announce the winners!
Over 3,700 students from more than 100 countries participated in five weeks of virtual hacking, diving deep into the niche of education, thinking through critical questions around the use of AI in the future of learning.
Judging criteria for the Microsoft AI Classroom Hackathon
With $12,000 USD in prizes up for grabs, participating undergraduate and graduate students were asked to reimagine education in the era of AI. Winning projects demonstrated core components of Microsoft Azure—from the latest machine learning and generative AI models of Azure AI, Azure Databases such as Azure Cosmos DB and Azure SQL, and Azure App Services, such as Azure Functions or Azure Kubernetes Service.
Bonus credit was given to projects that demonstrated accessibility considerations as well as Microsoft’s Responsible AI Principles.
Winning teams spanned the globe, hailing from India, Turkey, Singapore, Canada, Germany, and the United States. Competing across categories for Best Graduate and Undergraduate Technical Applications, as well as a no-code category for generative AI, winning projects touched on themes that range from accessibility to personalized learning to gamification. Beyond cash prizes, winning teams have support to continue their projects and AI learning journeys mentorship from Microsoft, including access to Microsoft for Startups resources such as Founders Hub.
Celebrating innovation: Meet the hackathon winners
Technical Project | First Place
ChatEDU: Revolutionizing Education with Azure AI
Microsoft AI Classroom Hackathon First Place winner, ChatEDU, offers personalized study guides, multiple-choice tests, long answer formats, and context-driven sessions.
Project overview: ChatEDU is not just an educational tool, it’s a revolution in learning. By harnessing the power of Azure AI, including GPT-4 and Azure’s diverse databases and services, ChatEDU transcends traditional learning methods. Transforming any text or file into an immersive tutoring experience, ChatEDU offers personalized study guides, multiple-choice tests, long answer formats, and context-driven sessions.
Meet the team: “We are a team of four computer science undergraduates from Vanderbilt University. Since meeting during our first year of school, we have collaborated on various projects and dedicated numerous hours to exploring the possibilities offered by emerging technologies. The Microsoft AI Classroom hackathon provided us with the ideal platform to create a tool that contributes to the community that brought us together.”
Congratulations to JP Higgens, Jason Headman, Jake Underwood, and Vasco Singh on their first-place win.
Technical Project | Second Place
Dialogues Through Time: An Educational History Game
Microsoft AI Classroom Hackathon Second Place winner, “Dialogues Through Time,” combines immersive storytelling and interactive AI-driven dialogues to offer a unique learning experience.
Project overview: Embark on a groundbreaking journey through history with “Dialogues Through Time.” This innovative educational game combines immersive storytelling, interactive AI-driven dialogues, and stunning visuals to offer a unique learning experience.
Meet the team: Kryštof Olik and Bennet Poh are based out of Munich, Germany. Kryštof has extensive expertise in AI application development, while Bennet brings experience as a skilled 3D artist and game developer to the table. “Seeing how well our skills complement one another for what is needed for this project, we started work right away once we put our ideas for the project down on paper on a chilly Thursday evening after our university lecture.”
Technical Project | Third Place
Insight: An Intelligent and Personalized Learning Experience
Microsoft AI Classroom Hackathon Third Place winner, Insight, enables users to upload lecture notes by subject, transforming them into personalized quizzes and flashcards.
Project overview: “Our unwavering mission was inspired by the quest for enhanced learning experiences. We envisioned a transformative platform where students seamlessly convert mundane lecture notes into dynamic quizzes and flashcards, thus elevating the very fabric of their educational journey. This vision aims to provide students with an effortless tool that amplifies their understanding, turning conventional study materials into interactive and engaging learning resources. Our solution, Insight, enables users to upload lecture notes by subject, transforming them into personalized quizzes and flashcards. Imagine having a personalized study guide tailored to your unique needs, a companion that not only enhances your learning capacity but makes education itself more engaging and effective.”
Meet the team: Bryan Kang and Manfred Leow are based out of Singapore and have expertise in Python and Java development. The duo plan to continue working on their project. “Our journey doesn’t end here. The future of Insight includes implementing features like AI analytics and Speech to Text for recording lectures. We are committed to refining the user experience and maximizing the potential of AI in education.
Best Undergraduate Student App
DevHub: Empowering Students with AI Mentorship
Project overview: DevHub is a machine learning-based web application that empowers students in their core skills and helps them become job-ready. This platform will help students get mentorship through a machine learning model and professional community members, a well-structured roadmap for different domains, and an internship to build real-world and complex projects. The platform focuses on providing students with the latest learning opportunities and helping them build real-world projects, enhancing their technical and core skills.
Meet the team: Abdul Raheem is a Python lover and machine learning enthusiast who loves playing with data. An open-source contributor and learner based out of Sāhīwal, Punjab, Pakistan.
“As a community person, I understand the shared struggle that my community is facing where many students are unsure about their career path, leading to unproductive time in college. Those with passion lack a structured roadmap for skill development that can make them job-ready. In my tier-3 colleges, internship opportunities are almost none to zero because of our remote location as well. To address these challenges, my friend and I built a solution to help students become job-ready.”
Best Graduate Student App
Cuepal: AI Flashcard Quizzes for Students
Microsoft AI Classroom Hackathon Best Graduate Student App, Cuepal, is a tool where student notes are transformed by OpenAI’s GPT-4 into tailored flashcards and quiz questions.
Project overview: Cuepal is an interactive, classroom-integrated tool where student notes are transformed by OpenAI’s GPT-4 into tailored flashcards and quiz questions, ensuring students remain attentive and immediately benefit from customized study materials. This approach not only reinforces learning in real-time but also streamlines the creation of educational resources.
Meet the team: Cuepal AI was a collaborative effort across continents between Wei Chun, Benedict Neo, Victoria Amoroso, Cloey Wong, and Caroline Huynh. When thinking through the vision for where the project will evolve, the team is looking towards great advances in personalized learning. “Looking ahead, we aim to introduce a teacher’s module for class and student management. Additionally, we envision integrating a digital tutor for each student, offering personalized guidance and insights into their knowledge gaps and errors. This next step will further our mission to revolutionize the educational experience through tailored, AI-enhanced learning tools.”
Best No Code Project
Neural Synchronisation: A Collaborative Learning System
Project overview: “I was going through the ideas generator to see what potential ideas we could work on when I came across Neural Synchronisation Learning which takes into account real-time feedback and assessments. I came across a hackathon project through my LinkedIn connection that provides AI support to children having difficulty writing with hand tremors so while brainstorming I decided to make a platform that integrates mental health support for individuals and, a readability format for people with essential tremors and support for introverts.”
Meet the team: Akanksha Bhimte is based out of India, and this was her first hackathon project. The accomplishments she’s most proud of: “I take pride in the development of innovative neural synchronization algorithms. These algorithms effectively identify speech dominance, encourage balanced participation, and adapt responses in real time based on the evolving dynamics within the group. Leveraging Azure Cognitive Services, our system can accurately transcribe spoken content in real-time, enhancing the overall user experience. What we learned. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to make things inclusive for people who might have a hard time learning things.”
Honorable Mention
EquEdu: Making Training Videos Accessible for the Visually Impaired
Project overview: Did you know that there are 253 million visually impaired and 360 million hearing impaired people in the world? EquEdu is a content accessibility tool that allows you to make online educational content accessible for the visually impaired.
Meet the team: “I am Atakan. I’m a visually impaired person and a product developer. Since the age of 13, I have been developing software and I try to benefit from a lot of online training content both in my school life and in my software development process. However, since there is no audio description for the visually impaired, I am often faced with sentences like “we will click here, you see it on the screen” and I cannot benefit from the training.
As someone who frequently uses AI in his daily life, when I realized that the problem that I mentioned is not only my problem, but there are millions of people like me around the world, we started to develop EquEdu, which is powered by AI.
Building foundations for innovation
Microsoft is committed to fostering innovation for the next generation of students and young professionals. For more information about upcoming educational initiatives, bookmark the Microsoft Education Blog and check back frequently for updates.
Additional resources for young professionals and early career developers are available at:
To learn more about Microsoft’s latest innovations in data and AI, read the article The Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform—Unleash your data and accelerate your transformation on the Microsoft Azure Blog.
Overall, we are blown away by the quality of submissions and would like to provide a special thanks to all of our participants, as well as our partners at Devpost and University of South Florida, for helping to host the in-person and virtual components of the hackathon experience.
Microsoft AI Classroom Hackathon event partners from Devpost and the University of South Florida gathered for the in-person components of the hackathon.
For more information on submitted projects and winning teams from the Microsoft AI Classroom Hackathon, check out the official hackathon project gallery on Devpost.
