09.07.2025

SAINTS host first Hackathon

The SAINTS postgraduate researchers of cohort 1, along with the SAINTS team (although, sadly, not everyone!) held their first Hackathon in Darlington for three days at the beginning of July. The Hackathon involved interdisciplinary teams made up of computer scientists, health scientists, law and philosophy PhD students, who were given the challenge of innovating contact-tracing for a pandemic scenario, while keeping in mind safety, feasibility, ethics, society, and technical aspects.

At the end of the three days, the final “Show and Tell” featured diversified approaches, with many of them off the beaten track. Indeed, with intellectual emulation came originality, with unique propositions including NHS Bluetooth headphones, an AI policy advisor, RFID-AI chips, smart AI air purifiers, and contact tracing applied to the management of prompt infection in multi-agent systems. All projects sparked more in-depth questions and debates, eventually paving the way for their refinement and for our collective advancement.

The SAINTS CDT came together for three great and intensive days of work collaboration, but also of fun and team-bonding. Dr Richard Hawkins proved to be an invigorating Quiz master, testing us on general knowledge, history, geography, pop culture and music. Music questions that gave a disadvantage to all the teams facing Dr Colin Paterson… ! We also had the pleasure of taking a guided tour to the medieval Raby Castle, built in the 14th century, we witnessed its impressive range of art, textiles and furniture from across the globe, dating from the 17th to the 21st Century.

The whole experience of this first Hackathon demonstrated encouraging success for the eclectic enterprise at the heart of SAINTS. It showed promise for next events, and for the welcoming of Cohort 2 in September.