CivicHacks 2025 Recap: A Weekend of Innovation, Collaboration, and Impact

CivicHacks 2025 brought together 192 students from diverse backgrounds for a high-energy, impact-driven hackathon at the Duan Family Center for Computing & Data Sciences. With stunning views of Boston from the 17th floor, students spent two days collaborating on technology-driven solutions to real-world challenges. Guided by mentors, industry experts, and fellow hackers, participants turned ideas into impactful projects, showcasing the power of innovation and teamwork.

From brainstorming sessions to late-night coding sprints, CivicHacks was more than just a competition—it was a space where students built connections, developed skills, and turned ideas into action.

Key Highlights from the Hackathon

1. Tackling Real-World Issues

Participants had the opportunity to choose from various impact-driven tracks, each focused on pressing societal challenges, including:

• Social Justice & Advocacy – Projects aimed at increasing civic engagement and promoting equity.
• Environmental Sustainability – Tech solutions for climate action, renewable energy, and conservation.
• Economic Empowerment – Tools to support small businesses and financial literacy.
• Education & Accessibility – Innovations designed to make learning more inclusive and effective.

By the end of the hackathon, students pitched their projects to a panel of judges, showcasing creative and practical solutions designed to make a real difference.

2. A Supportive and Engaging Community

A hackathon is about more than just coding—it’s about learning and collaboration. Throughout the event, students had access to experienced mentors who guided them through the development process, from technical troubleshooting to refining their ideas.

The Opportunity Expo offered a valuable networking experience, connecting students with companies, startups, and organizations at the forefront of civic technology. Many participants left not only with new skills but also with meaningful professional connections to support their career growth.

3. Big Wins, Big Ideas

CivicHacks 2025 wrapped up with a high-energy project showcase and awards ceremony, where top teams were recognized for their innovative work. Some standout projects included:

🏆 AnimaGo — Best Design

AnimaGo is an augmented reality mobile game that allows users to discover, identify, and catalog wildlife in their surroundings. Players use their mobile devices to scan and recognize animals using computer vision and AI, earning experience points and achievements for each successful identification. The app features a “Biodex” where players can track their findings, a gamified capture system based on image quality, a leaderboard to encourage competition, and challenges to promote biodiversity tracking. AnimaGo also integrates conservation efforts by allowing players to donate to wildlife organizations and participate in real-world nature preservation quests.

🏆 ThinkFLOW — Most Impact

The idea for ThinkFlow was born from the need to make learning more structured, accessible, and intuitive. Many learners struggle with information overload, making it difficult to synthesize key concepts effectively. Inspired by cognitive learning theories and visual learning techniques, ThinkFlow aims to bridge this gap by leveraging AI-powered mind maps to simplify complex topics.

🏆 Green Gauge — Best Technical Execution

Green Gauge highlights the importance of trees in relation to improving air quality, helping reduce carbon, and mitigating rising temperatures. The app allows users to type in an address anywhere in the world. It then takes a satellite image of that location and is run by a pre-trained AI model and the results of that analysis get sent to an LLM to provide actionable insights to policy makers and the community. Green Gauge conveys information like tree coverage percentage, number of trees, weather of that location, and air quality.

🏆 PoliSights.ai — Best Use of AI (Sponsored by Avenade)

Small businesses often struggle to keep up with evolving policies and regulations. Many small-scale organizations cannot afford expensive legal fees or hire dedicated lawyers, forcing them to manually track regulation updates—an overwhelming and time-consuming task. Inspired by the challenges faced by entrepreneurs in navigating compliance requirements, PoliSights.ai envisions a solution that automates policy tracking and delivers actionable insights in real-time. Our system extracts policy documents using BeautifulSoup/Scrapy, processes them with NLP models (OpenAI, SpaCy), and stores structured data in Snowflake and Pinecone for efficient retrieval.

🏆 Bob the Builder (SafeContractor) — Overall Winner

SafeContractor is a database where residents can search for and verify the credentials of contractors in Boston by compiling information from obscure public records. In addition to detailed contractor profiles, the platform automatically generates AI-driven summaries that offer users a concise overview of each contractor’s qualifications and background. This dual approach—rigorous verification and clear, AI-generated insights—helps reduce the risk of scams and empowers users to make informed decisions.

Beyond the prizes, every team walked away having gained hands-on experience, new friendships, and a deeper understanding of how technology can drive social change.

What Students Had to Say

One of the best parts of CivicHacks is hearing directly from students about their experiences. Here’s what some participants had to say about this year’s hackathon:

💬 “The events and the workshops were very nice, and everyone who works at Spark! is very welcoming and easy to talk to, so they made the experience as well.” – Student from Flora the Explorer

💬 “Balancing expectations was the most challenging part of the weekend. Being my first hackathon, I wanted to earn prizes, but I also wanted to learn. There were so many things going on, but I ended up learning more and meeting people. I went to the game night, and my team actually won, so I got both things that I wanted.” – Just Vote, First-Time Hackathoner

💬 “Working all night on the same project was such a unique experience. Just give it a try! You’ll never know how it goes if you don’t try it.” – Student from SoloLevelers

💬 “Finding teammates that you work really well with is the best way to prep for a hackathon. You don’t need to know how to do all of the coding—Google and AI can help. Having a team you can split up work with and actually get things done is really important.” – Student from Flora the Explorer

💬 “The workplace was honestly my favorite part. CDS has great views.” – Student from Flora the Explorer

💬“My highlight was going to the Git session. There was one about learning the Git commands—it was interactive and engaging.” – Just Vote, First-Time Hackathoner

Looking Ahead

As CivicHacks 2025 comes to a close, the energy and excitement from the weekend continue to resonate. Many teams plan to further develop their projects, leveraging the connections and skills gained at the event.

For those who missed this year’s hackathon, don’t worry! Keep an eye out for future events, workshops, and opportunities to continue learning and building. Be sure to check our newsletter for updates on upcoming hackathons, networking opportunities, and ways to stay involved in the community.

To all the participants, mentors, judges, and organizers—thank you for making CivicHacks 2025 an unforgettable experience. See you next year!

📸 Check out event photos and highlights here: