From health care to sustainability or mainstream technology, hackathons often showcase some of the most inventive ideas developed across different industries. With the exponential growth of technology, we can only expect hackathon projects to become increasingly impactful and to introduce new ways to improve how we live and work.To celebrate another year of innovation at TAIKAI, we've compiled five standout hackathon projects from 2023 that took home top prizes this year!Winning smart solutions from hackathons in 2023Before delving into the best hackathon projects in 2023, it's worth mentioning that the best hackathon projects are always backed by a good hackathon pitch - a short presentation given by participants to showcase their projects at the end of a hackathon. A good hackathon pitch showcases your skills and creativity and should be well-thought-out. 1. Safety map for cyclists 🚴♂️The CycleAI project was developed for Microsoft’s “Building the Future” hackathon, which challenged participants to come up with innovative solutions on Electric Mobility.Currently, cyclists still face many dangers on the road, which prevents greater use and adherence by commuters (increasing, in turn, the number of combustion vehicles, pollution, traffic, and so on).The team behind the project created a model that can estimate a cyclist's perceived road safety score. For entire cities, a map of safety would be generated at a low cost. The goal is to treat centralized datasets in a way that empowers cyclists for their own safety. The application of the tool was divided into two main approaches:Creation of the Machine Learning model, both for B2B (Uber, Bolt, Glovo cyclists, among others) and B2C (casual riders and commuters).Build up a municipality’s Datahub, offering them a joint urban planning service at a fraction cost of other multinationals.The CycleAI project won the prestigious Microsoft hackathon, proving that a solid, well-designed concept backed up by data can have a huge impact on our daily lives.2. Smart environment tracker 🏡The Smart Environment project was developed under the City Hack 2021 hackathon, which aimed to find technological solutions to improve the quality of life in cities. Water wastage has played a determinant role in the world's environmental issues in recent decades, and its preservation, as well as the sensible use of water, has become one of the century's most recurring challenges.To address these issues, it is vital to be aware of the quantity and quality of environmental resources used on a daily basis, in order to make insightful and sustainable decisions.This project idea was designed to listen to the environment by sensing occurrences in a precise, quantitative, and qualitative approach, to better understand environmental phenomena and how to respond to them.The Smart Environment network is the application of IoT sensors that record environmental conditions, consumed by artificial intelligence algorithms in order to mobilize precise alerts and action mechanisms in real-time.The network is composed of several nodes of environmental sensors, connected to a central processing unit, responsible for coordinating and connecting the network to the internet.The data would then be segregated into different categories and shown in a dashboard, so users could track and monitor different parameters such as infrared levels, butane and methane gas levels, water temperature, soil humidity, or UV rays index, to name a few. 3. Team-building app 🫂The next project is called “Team Dynamics” and it was developed for the ALT+F hackathon. This hackathon challenged innovators to solve global challenges and define the future of people’s development and social impact.In today's corporate world of 'work from home' and remote hiring, managers face a big challenge to build a productive team of individuals, where not just technical skills, but also their interpersonal skills align as well.A team that works well together is far more productive and has fewer disputes.With this in mind, the team developed a complete application that provides managers with a variety of tools to form a cohesive team, perform team-building activities, and manage employee onboarding sessions.What differentiates this app from others on the market is, in fact, its artificial intelligence and data-driven component.The app aims to match teams based on various analytical metrics, obtained from the interaction between employees in the organization.Based on the feedback provided by all the participants, the application will perform various analytical and statistical operations and generate interactive visualizations and insights.This, in turn, will provide managers with several options to form highly productive and efficient teams.4. Urban agriculture 🪴“GrowIn” was built for the TecStorm 2021 hackathon, a hackathon that seeks disruptive ideas under 3 categories, one of them being sustainable development, which this project fits in. There is growing concern about the way we produce food, both in terms of its impact on the environment, as well as the quality of the food that reaches the consumer.The team's plan is to use a modular system of intelligent agriculture to democratize and decentralize agriculture.GrowIn brings agriculture – and, most importantly, fresh, organic, and sustainable food – into your house by combining the power of automation, sensing, and artificial intelligence.The project idea is to empower everyone to contribute to the solution, setting the conditions for a long-term community production ecology.The rack, a simple structure that automatically measures and adjusts the many variables required for horticulture growth, is the system's most important component (the brightness, temperature, and humidity of the medium).The rack includes:Support structure and irrigation circuit (reservoirs, pipes, etc.);Sensors (by resorting to a camera feature), light sensor, ambient humidity and temperature sensor, soil moisture sensor, and water level sensor;Control through a microcontroller and actuators such as LEDs and electro valves;Artificial Intelligence that implements a predictive model for disease identification;More advanced modules can be integrated into this basic unit, such as nutrient concentration control, pest and disease control in plants, and size, weight, and color verification, all of which contribute to a more automated and efficient process.5. Tools usage tracker 🔧The HILTI Smart Construction hackathon was created with the goal of developing, testing, and validating novel concepts for intricate construction projects.Participants were asked to create a concept or solution that combines modern technologies such as IoT, computer vision, and robotics to capture and interpret relevant data in the field using real-world data. The winning project was created by a single participant, who designed a prototype to measure tool usage in day-to-day operations.The entire process on the construction site can be visualized and a better understanding can be achieved by identifying smaller segments of operations.By resorting to machine learning, the retrieved data could then be utilized to optimize a range of diverse activities, such as finding the best tools for a certain task or detecting misusage or dangerous tool actions.This data can be used to optimize and fix problems with higher precision, for future improvements.That concludes our list of the best hackathon projects from 2023These cool projects not only show off innovation but also won their respective hackathon competitions, illustrating the amazing possibilities of technology in different fields.More than competitions, hackathons are platforms for creativity, invention, and innovation. As we move forward, we'll see more technology solutions being used to help us in our daily lives and work, and hackathons will serve as a testing ground for groundbreaking ideas and collaborative problem-solving.Do you want to be an innovator?Every project we mentioned in this list was developed for hackathons in TAIKAI. Head over to our latest hackathons and join our amazing community of +100,000 innovators ⚡