UWB Hacks 2026

Name of the competition: UWB Hacks 2026

About the competition: UWB Hacks is UW Bothell’s premier annual hackathon where students come together to build amazing projects, show them off to industry guests and other students, and compete for prizes. There are 3 tracks, namely “Cities and Societies”, “Human Experience”, and “Avande Business Solutions”. 

Cities and Societies Track - Build solutions that create impact at a community or system level, such as cities, campuses, workplaces, or large organizations. This track is about big-picture thinking and designing tools that improve how groups of people live, work, and make decisions. Think: an app that tracks local air quality and offers practical actions people can take to improve it.

Date of competition: 24 April 2026 to 26 April 2026 

Achievement: 1st Place Track Winner (Cities and Societies) 

Prize: Prizes are non-monetary. Up to $600 (depending on selection from the prize pool) per group member, totaling to $2,400 

REP Students: Bersamin Justin Timothy Carmona, Khoo An Xian, Selen (SiTong) Sun, Sricharan Balasubramanian

Product/Proposal: The team designed an AI-powered voice companion - Coco.

Description: The team built Coco, an AI-powered voice companion accessible via a standard phone call—no apps, no touchscreens, no friction. For the senior, it provides step-by-step guidance for tech tasks.

Key features include:

  • Dynamically altering the tone and pace when the user sounds confused/requests to speak slower
  • Scam detection by monitoring conversation context to identify high risk scenarios
  • Privacy guardrails by proactively reminding users to never reveal sensitive information like passwords, PINs, or banking details
  • For caretakers: It offers a "guardian" dashboard. Coco monitors calls in real-time to detect scams or cognitive distress. If a user gets stuck in a loop or a scammer is mentioned, Coco intervenes and instantly alerts the family via SMS and a live web dashboard.

From left to right: Selen (SiTong) Sun, Khoo An Xian, Bersamin Justin Timothy Carmona and Sricharan Balasubramanian