School of Business and Law

Thursday, 10 July 2025

ECU School of Business and Law challenged students to rethink the ECU experience in a half-day sprint at the BSO Hackathon.

Could you build a smarter university in one day?

That was the challenge accepted by ECU students at the BSO Hackathon 2025, held at Joondalup campus. The theme? “Innovative Solutions for a Smarter University”.

The hackathon took real challenges students face on campus and tasked participants with creating data-driven, AI-enhanced solutions.

In small, cross-disciplinary teams, students had six hours to ideate, code, and pitch bold digital projects. While the timeframe was tight, the groups were supported by expert ECU mentors, who were available for assistance while the teams worked on their solutions.

Three challenges. Infinite possibilities.

This year’s three challenge areas asked: how can we use tech to make life at ECU simpler, smoother, and more supportive?

They were:

1. A student support chatbot to streamline access to information across ECU’s website
2. A smart parking space detection system to reduce campus congestion
3. An international student companion chatbot to ease the transition into uni life for students from abroad

The groups chose their challenge and got to work.

Ideas to Implementation

Within minutes, students were prototyping their solutions. From virtual assistants helping international students settle into life in Perth, to AI-powered chatbots that respond to student queries in seconds, the concepts were ambitious and creative.

During the final pitches, teams demonstrated their tools in action; some even took live questions from the audience and fed them directly into their chatbots.

A panel of expert judges, each linked to a challenge area, asked questions before ultimately deciding on winners in three categories:

• Most innovative solution: Winner - Team Oops! No Bays comprised of students Neetu Neetu, Damith De Silva, Isuri Perera, Manesh Gunasekara, Valarie Alwaris, and Otilia Mabhura.
• Best technical implementation winner: Winner - Team Future Stack comprised of students Vaishna Prabha, Sreya Binu, Shoumik Ratul, Aswin John Thomas, Nirali Upadhyay, and Jayada Khatun.
• Grand Prize: Best Overall Solution: Winner – Team TechnoTonic comprised of students Nathiya Rajeswaran, Thu Pham, Choeing Lhazin, Md Mukit Murshed, Ashly Shaji Varghese, Ashily Jibu, and Albab Reza.

Their presentations left the judges and organisers more than impressed.

"Hackathons are often seen as something only for data science students, but this event truly broke that stereotype.” Said organiser and lecturer Dr Senali Madugoda Gunaratnege.

“We had students from a range of disciplines, and their creativity and innovation were nothing short of inspiring. It was amazing to see how diverse perspectives led to such exciting ideas".

While only three teams received awards, all participants received a certificate of participation and walked away with ideas which could benefit the university.

Real world experience

The hackathon was a great example of the School’s commitment to empowering students as co-creators of their education and future careers.

For students, the experience was invaluable.

“Events like this give you a pulse of what it is like to work in the industry” said one of the grand prize-winning team members, Mukit Mursh.

“The hackathon is a great experience to learn new skills, work on new projects… it displays your skills, and it makes you stand out in the market”.

Several students were invited by guest judge Tim Sondalini from WADSIH to participate in an upcoming state-level AFAC25 Emergency Management Hackathon.

But for now, events like this are doing more than preparing students for jobs. They’re teaching them how to identify real gaps and build something better.

This is what a smarter university looks like. And our students are helping build it.