In recent weeks, students presented their AI-based concepts in the first round of the competition series of the Faculty of Informatics called DEIK.AI Challenge 2026, followed by an AI demo competition in the second stage, where they presented their own developments in action. The top-rated projects then were invited to the two-day AI Sprint final, where participants tried to solve real-world problems, developing new features or complete solutions, as part of an intensive development challenge. In this concluding round, individual development performance, collaborative skills, initiative and creativity were all important factors to weigh.
The objective of the three-round competition was to provide professional support for promising projects and to explore future development paths, while also encouraging further progress in research, market access and international expansion.
András Hajdu, Dean of the Faculty of Informatics at the University of Debrecen, underlined that one of the strategic goals of the competition was to find the developments and collaborative opportunities that could eventually lead to solutions applicable in research or even ready for the commercial market.
- This competition series goes way beyond the walls of our university. While our primary goal was to provide our students with a platform where they could showcase their artificial intelligence-related developments and innovative ideas, in every round we sought concepts, proposals for solutions and functional models that address and handle real-world problems through solutions that could potentially be utilized even in a commercial environment. We also engaged participants in tasks that equally impact the university, our city and the broader socio-economic environment. The fact that these participating students came from a number of different academic disciplines clearly indicates a widespread demand for AI-based technologies, spanning fields from agriculture and healthcare to engineering. Our participants drew on their own experiences and the influences coming from their immediate surroundings to work on solving real-world, often quotidian, problems. Thus, the competition’s multidisciplinary objective was also achieved: collaborations spanning different faculties and fields of study were established, while several innovative ideas and developments emerged. These are ideas that are worth pursuing further in the future and that can help define the next professional, research or development directions- said the faculty leader to hirek.unideb.hu.
During the course of AI Sprint, participants were required to advance their solutions and add or create new features within a relatively short timeframe. This intensive development environment not only revealed which projects were capable of rapid progress, but also highlighted which initiatives involved genuine potential for further research, business development or even international expansion.
AI Sprint results:
1stplace: Pixel Asset Generator – Oleksii Hetrik
2nd place: RoarFit – Dániel János Dankó
3rd place: Praetor – Patrik Huzina, Áron Pál Tóth
Special prize recipients:
Present My Document – Toby Purbojo
FlowCut – Istiak Bin Razzak Abid
AeraWise – Aaraadhanaa Manon Prakash
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