“We started participating in hackathons six months ago," describes Łukasz Kryczka. "It quickly became clear that we are quite good at it."

How to train employees on phishing?

Best Hacking League was the first, featuring a cybersecurity problem to solve. The task involved phishing (a phenomenon where a so-called 'bad actor' sends an unsuspecting person from a company, whose data or system they want to access, an email or message containing some sort of trap, such as a link leading to a website with a virus.

Our students developed a comprehensive system in just 24 hours that utilizes language models to create realistic, personalized, and organic-looking training phishing emails. This provides a valuable resource for companies that cannot afford expensive employee training.

- "Realism is a crucial aspect here — most current market solutions have tried to emulate this, but their approaches were very obvious and instead of warning employees, they merely led them to believe that the threat was nonexistent," explains Łukasz Kryczka. "After clicking the link in our emails, the employee would be notified, as intended, that they had been 'caught' and would then complete a brief interactive course. Administrators have a panel that allows them to monitor current phishing threats, schedule new tests based on real attacks documented by CERT, and refer at-risk employees to additional training," he adds.

In the Best Hacking League, in the CyberSecurity category, Łukasz Kryczka, Piotr Tyrakowski, Michał Kwiatkowski, and Jakub Lisowski secured first place.

Michał Kwiatkowski, Jakub Lisowski, Łukasz Kryczka, and Piotr Tyrakowski after the first of many hackathon successes

Help for parents

Next was HackYeah – one of the largest hackathons in Europe. This time, the team expanded to include two additional WUT students, Wiktor Frątczak and Michał Zajączkowski. They chose the Wellness category and decided to create a solution to help parents of young children who often face gastrointestinal issues.

- "Our tool is not just software; it’s also a physical device — a potty that monitors the child's gastrointestinal health by weighing and analyzing stool samples using artificial intelligence," explains Łukasz Kryczka. "Contrary to appearances, the amount of information we can gather this way is significant. With the potty, parents can monitor whether their child is developing properly in this aspect and respond quickly in case of any anomalies, all while having solid data to present directly to the doctor. The entire system is connected to an easy-to-use application.”

The team from WUT secured second place in their category (with 60 teams participating).

Shorts and hotels

The students also decided to participate in AngelHack — the edition taking place in Poland. Here, participants (around 60 teams from around the world) could choose one of three categories. Our students opted for Blockchain. They created an application that combines two themes: the decreasing average attention span and the popularity of short video content — known as 'shorts.'.

- "Our application is a platform for watching specialized courses (e.g., in mathematics, drawing, or social skills) formatted to be digestible in the form of shorts," explains Łukasz Kryczka. "This allows us to learn, for example, on the subway or bus, and when we have limited time, we can do so in smaller chunks and more frequently. Additionally, there is a discovery algorithm that enables users to quickly browse through parts of the shorts for a given course and rapidly find new materials that intellectually interest them. Once they become engaged, the algorithm directs them to the actual course."

The team finished in second place in their category and earned such a high position in the global ranking that it qualified them for the AngelHack finals in Singapore.

There, participants face a specific challenge involving the use of IT systems to improve or even revolutionize certain aspects of the Singaporean hotel brand Lyf.

- "We chose the task 'How can we increase customer satisfaction and contentment at Lyf?' says Łukasz Kryczka. 'We are developing an application that enhances the quality of hotel services and addresses some of the brand's issues through direct interaction with managers and staff. We will be able to share more information after the finals in Singapore, which will take place on October 29.'"