Hackathon - 17/02/2023-18/02/2023
Fueling Creativity and Innovation: The Ashesi D:Lab Hackathon Success Story
D:Lab Hackathon team cracking up for their solution concept
The D:Lab Hackathon at Ashesi University, was one of the biggest events of the year. With 13 teams of highly motivated students, ready to take on the challenge of creating efficient processes that enhance student experiences on campus, the competition was sure to be fierce. This year's edition of the Hackathon was particularly thrilling, with a record number of teams comprising various nationalities such as Zimbabweans, Kenyans, Cameronians, Nigerians etc signing up to participate. The teams were made up of students from various disciplines as well, including engineering, computer science, information systems and business administration. Each team brought a unique set of skills and perspectives to the table, resulting in a diverse range of ideas and creative approaches. The fun, food and snack breaks made the atmosphere very electrifying, and the students' enthusiasm was contagious.
The Ashesi D:Lab has always been committed to fostering a culture of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship on campus. The Hackathon is one of the many initiatives that the D:Lab has launched to achieve this goal. The Hackathon provides students with an opportunity to put their creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills to test while tackling real-world problems. For this year’s challenge, the Office of Diversity and International Programs (ODIP) organizes an annual Buddy-Up Program to enable Ashesi freshmen smoothly transition and settle into campus life with the guidance of a continuing student buddy. The back-end processes for this program are usually cumbersome, hence, the team wants a streamlined system to make it easier to pair up first-year and continuing students. The challenge with the Buddy-Up Program therefore led to the theme, Building Efficient Processes to Enhance Student Experiences. At the start of the event, Professor Adomzda, co-founder and faculty lead at the Ashesi D:Lab recounted the D:Lab’s resolve to imbue the culture of design-thinking and design-making as a default problem solving approach amongst Ashesi students. He intimated that‘the Ashesi D:Lab’s continuous mandate to fill a gap of interdisciplinary projects on campus by ‘building whatever the students want, at whatever pace’ has always been at the core of its activities and programs.
Hackathon team racing to beat time for submissions
The teams were required to design innovative systems for the ODIP team by going through the problem space mapping, ideation and user validation phases. After working throughout the night and early morning, the Hackathon culminated in a series of presentations, where each team showcased their solutions to a panel of judges and the other participating teams as audience. The presentations were nothing short of impressive and intellectually-exciting, with each team presenting innovative and practical solutions to enhance student experiences on campus. The judges were blown away by the level of creativity and innovation on display, making the task of selecting the winners a challenging one. But after assessing their presentations and the actual work that they submitted at the end of each of the Hackathon's 4 rounds, these 3 teams were judged to have the best solution concepts. The winning team was Banco (Nicole Nanka Bruce - 2024, Brenda Gerbs - 2024, Adelle Hasford - 2024, Oheneba Dade - 2024 and Chudah Yakung - 2024). Their solution concept is a: "Buddy App onClick, Buddy!" A web app that allows the ODIP to upload student data and pair them up using the KNN algorithm. It also has an inbuilt M&E functionality. The team that came second was Oreo-X (Salama Sarunah - 2026, Obed Babington - 2025, Eyra Agbenu - 2026, Diana Murungu - 2026). Their solution concept is: A Better Way - A social event for all continuing and freshmen buddies. It makes use of interesting games and self-regulated activities to pair up students. Finally, the team that came third was PaceSetters (Adwoa Osei-Akoto - 2025, Alice Asiedu - 2025, Angela Benning - 2025, Erica Atta - 2025). Their solution concept is: Ashesi BuddyConnect. An all-in-one app that connects buddy freshmen, buddy champions, and continuing students. The participants were very excited about the Hackathon. Majority of them found it fun, interesting, a place to discover skills and learn many lessons. Although they also found it tiring and tasking, they said they would relive the Hackathon if they get the chance to. The judges, David Effah, Nana Oye Amankwaa and Percy Brown, were highly impressed with the solutions the teams presented. They commented on how commendable students were able to build workable websites and web apps in less than 24 hours.
Team Force wrapping their submission
The D:Lab in conjunction with the Ashesi Entrepreneurship Center, Career Services department and Swoove Delivery, awarded the winning team a cash prize of GHC1,500, support from the Career Services department, an internship with Swoove Delivery and a team building trip with Easy-Go. The team that won second place, was given the same awards as the first place team, however, with a cash prize of GHC900. The third place team was awarded a cash prize of GHC600. Additionally, all the winning teams will receive gift vouchers, support from the D:Lab to implement their solutions and paid Udemy courses.
The D:Lab Hackathon was a spectacular success, and all of the teams' solution concepts showed a lot of promise and innovation. The event was a testament to the power of collaboration, problem solving, critical and creative thinking smeared around the concept of design thinking. The D:Lab is certain that the event has inspired a lot of students to take on the challenge of identifying and solving every-day problems around them. By providing students with a platform to develop solutions to real-world problems, the D:Lab is helping to shape the next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs which aligns with the bigger mission of Ashesi University.