{"id":3532,"date":"2026-04-14T11:25:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T11:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/?p=3532"},"modified":"2026-04-28T11:27:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T11:27:05","slug":"solve-unite-hackathon-student-innovation-at-upc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/solve-unite-hackathon-student-innovation-at-upc\/","title":{"rendered":"Solve & Unite! Hackathon: student innovation at UPC"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

Driven by students from five Unite! universities and supported by the Seed Fund, the “Solve & Unite! Hackathon” at the UPC has become a hub for collaborative innovation. This initiative demonstrates how multidisciplinary teamwork delivers creative, student-led solutions to the challenges of international student integration.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Universitat Polit\u00e8cnica de Catalunya (UPC) recently became a hub for collaborative innovation with the Solve & Unite! Hackathon. Driven by students from five universities within the Unite! alliance (UPC, TU Darmstadt, PoliTO, ULisboa, and WUST<\/strong>) and supported by the Seed Fund for Student Activity, the event demonstrated how multidisciplinary teamwork can provide creative solutions to the challenges of integrating exchange students.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Three projects: three approaches to integration<\/h3>\n

The hackathon concluded with the presentation of three prototypes, each addressing a critical aspect of the international student experience:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Social\u00a0connectivity and\u00a0combating\u00a0loneliness<\/strong>:\u00a0The first team addressed the general feeling of isolation among students. They presented a universal digital matchmaking platform designed to help students connect through shared academic contexts, interests, and events. The concept allows students to find relevant peers before even attending activities, fostering a sense of belonging from the very beginning.<\/li>\n
  • Onboarding and\u00a0city\u00a0adaptation<\/strong>: The second group focused on the critical first weeks of adaptation. Their solution featured an interactive city map of events and opportunities based on shared interests and location. The platform was designed to support social integration in a highly practical way while ensuring the total privacy and protection of user data.<\/li>\n
  • All-in-one\u00a0gamified\u00a0support<\/strong>: The third team developed an all-in-one digital platform that addresses the multiple needs of incoming students by combining legal guidance, language support, and social integration tools. To strengthen community bonds even before arrival on campus, they introduced a gamified experience to help students interact in a comfortable, playful, and respectful digital environment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Student\u00a0leadership and\u00a0next\u00a0steps<\/h3>\n

    The success of the event is\u00a0proof of\u00a0the dedication of\u00a0an international organising team<\/strong>\u00a0consisting of students\u00a0from all five participating universities<\/strong>: Kateryna\u00a0Stepaniuk\u00a0(TU Darmstadt), Jos\u00e9 Daniel V\u00e1squez (UPC), Anna Angelone (PoliTo), Dmitrii\u00a0Zaev\u00a0and R\u00faben Matos (ULisboa), and Maksymilian Wojnowski (WUST).<\/p>\n

    Following the presentations, the project now enters an evaluation phase this May<\/strong>. This process will\u00a0determine\u00a0which of these initiatives holds the greatest potential for implementation to improve academic, social, and cultural life across all Unite! partner universities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Driven by students from five Unite! universities and supported by the Seed Fund, the “Solve & Unite! Hackathon” at the UPC has become a hub for collaborative innovation. This initiative demonstrates how multidisciplinary teamwork delivers creative, student-led solutions to the challenges of international student integration. The Universitat Polit\u00e8cnica de Catalunya (UPC) recently became a hub […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3535,"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3532\/revisions\/3535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}