The Skandalaris Center recently hosted its Fall Hackathon, bringing together more than 80 bright minds to tackle real-world problems through innovation, collaboration, and plenty of late-night snacks. From vibe code to no code, teams created app-based solutions to their chosen problems throughout the weekend, then presented their solutions to a panel of judges for a chance to win cash prizes.
Skandalaris Associate Director Adam Wilson kicked off the event Friday evening with a thought exercise to spark creativity and a reminder that solutions are everywhere if you’re willing to look at problems from every angle. The energy was palpable as students formed teams and dove into brainstorming.
True to the Skandalaris Center’s spirit, the hackathon united students from five WashU schools and even St. Louis University. From first-year undergraduates to graduate students, the variety of disciplines and perspectives showed that innovation doesn’t come from one corner of campus but flourishes when passionate people from different backgrounds collaborate. This diversity helped teams ask better questions and view their problems from a variety of angles, resulting in better solutions.
While many students came into the weekend with a team, many others arrived without a group. Wilson helped facilitate team creation, making sure everyone found a group to work with. One of the best outcomes of the weekend was hearing students remark on how they couldn’t imagine their solution coming together without the help of the additional team members they gained during the kickoff event.
Over the next 36 hours, participants created solutions from computer vision for waste identification to augmented reality for senior citizens. The outcome? Impressive, fully functional prototypes built under intense time pressure.
The Winning Teams
🥇 1st Place – Yoink! ($750)
Yoink! aims to help the world combat over-consuming, overspending, and overproducing.
Ariana Sites (Brown School), Mohammad Alabdalla (SLU Alum), Raneem Mousa (McKelvey School of Engineering), April Jung (Sam Fox School of Design), Mary Ashley Barredo (McKelvey School of Engineering)
🥈 2nd Place – SafeRoutes ($500)
A navigation app designed to help people choose not just the fastest route, but the safest one.
Winston Wu (McKelvey School of Engineering) and Ran Duan (McKelvey School of Engineering)
🥉 3rd Place – Seeds ($250)
An app designed for young adults to make giving to charity feel more personal and impactful.
Marco Ni (McKelvey School of Engineering), Kenny Childs (McKelvey School of Engineering), Mohaned Munsor (School of Arts & Sciences, not pictured)
We’re grateful to Krista Theby (Edward Jones), Jeff Barry (Dot Foods), Jake Heberlie (Rentvine), and Jordan Woerndle (Juristat) for joining us on a Sunday afternoon, lending their expertise, and enduring the frenzied pitches of sleep-deprived students. And to our volunteers—thank you for helping the event run seamlessly.
At the Skandalaris Center, the hackathon is just the start. Whether it’s the Skandalaris Venture Competition, Summer Launchpad program, or another exciting entrepreneurial venture, we look forward to seeing what our students create next.
Innovation doesn’t sleep. And this weekend, neither did our hackers.