CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – 11 teams of 65 total participants competed in the 2025 Research Park Hackathon on Tuesday, July 1. Teams had sixteen hours to create a project aligned with the theme “Innovation in a Day.” New this year, the Hackathon held a science-fair style demonstration session where judges and guests could learn more about participants’ projects. Finalists demoed and presented their work to the judges, who scored them in three categories; business viability, creativity and execution.
Judges were highly impressed with the team’s outcomes. Not only did projects perform well in the Hackathon, but judges believe they would yield successful results if integrated into internal production.
“Participating in Hackathons like this from a judging perspective helps me get an understanding of some of the newest tools and technologies out there and where the younger talent is focusing their efforts,” said Jarai Carter, Senior Manager of Data Science at the John Deere Technology and Innovation Center. “I saw some really cool ideas where I’m like, ‘this is actually something that could be used in a variety of different settings.'”
2025 Research Park Hackathon Winners:
COUNTRY Financial DigitaLab won first place for “Party Mode,” a real-time Spotify voting feature allowing users to upvote and downvote the songs in a communal queue. Groups are democratically able to choose what song plays, leading to better music experiences and reduced conflicts.
Mondelēz International won second place for “Labyrinth”, a platform designed to easily connect students with professors based on academic interests, skill level, availability, and academic compatibility.
COUNTRY Financial DigitaLab also won third place for “Wrist Play”, a smart watch that establishes a seamless communication channel between the watch itself, and smartphones. Wrist Play using Google Play Services’ Wearable Data API to enable gesture recognition and motion-based control applications.
Mondelēz International also won the “Fan Favorite” award for “UniTion”, which allows students to place their homework, exam, and lab deadlines in one central location such as Google Calendar or Notion by taking data from any course website allowing one place for all deadlines to be organized.
The Kohler Innovation Center won the “Most Creative” award for “Duolingo World”, a VR program allowing users to be places in realistic environments where they can interact with NPCs, ask questions, check out at a store, and solve spontaneous challenges all while learning a language of their choosing.
The John Deere Technology Innovation Center won “Best Business Potential” for “Real Useful Life Prediction,” a software used to predict the estimated life remaining on John Deere equipment. The software can alert users of where issues may appear, and can point them in the direction of getting repairs.
The judges included:
- Laura Appenzeller: Executive Director, UIRP
- Gerard Wilson: Director of Entrepreneurship, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Kaleb Medina: Marketing and Communications Specialist, UIRP
- Jarai Carter: Senior Manager, Data Science, John Deere Technology Innovation Center
- Eric Barnard: Co-Founder and CTO, HarvestIQ
- Michelle Firrell: Site Director, Mondelēz International
- Julia Hart: Site Leader, COUNTRY Financial DigitaLab
- Jeffrey Reifsnyder: Director, Advanced Technologies, Brunswick
- Blake Good: Chief Product Officer, Hourglass Medical
- Mark Sherbeyn: Human Resource Manager, Applied Pavement Technology
More photos from the event can be viewed in the Research Park media gallery and on the Research Park Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook pages.
Learn more about the event on the Research Park Hackathon page.
To participate in similar events, visit the Research Park calendar.
