Students Win Europe's Biggest Hackathon With AI Privacy Tool

Imagine typing medical records or credit card details into ChatGPT without worrying about where that data ends up. That's the problem four European students just solved in 30 hours.

Ege Ozguven, a first-year Chemical Engineering student from the University of Bath, teamed up with three students he'd never met before at HackEurope, Europe's largest student hackathon. Together, they built Aegis AI, a privacy tool that just won top honors against over 1,000 competitors across Dublin, Paris, and Stockholm.

The challenge they tackled is huge. As more professionals and students use AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini for work, sensitive information is getting exposed in cloud-based systems. Names, addresses, medical records, and financial details can all leak when people don't realize what they're sharing.

Aegis AI works like a smart filter. It scans your information locally on your device before anything reaches external AI models, automatically detecting and masking sensitive data. You get all the power of AI tools without compromising confidential information.

"I joined a team I hadn't met before, and 30 hours later we had built a tool that could make a real difference in AI privacy," Ege said. His teammates included Lukas Noel from Sweden's KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Advik Bahadur from Trinity College Dublin, and Jing Liu from Uppsala University.

The international squad walked away with €5,000 for their winning solution. But they're not stopping there.

The Ripple Effect

The team is now working with Acceler8, the University of Bath's student entrepreneurial society, to turn their hackathon project into something bigger. They're developing a beta version to test with real staff and researchers who regularly use AI tools in their work.

"Hackathons are a powerful way to introduce students to entrepreneurship," said Siobain Hone, Graduate Enterprise Manager at the University of Bath. The university has a strong track record of helping student innovators scale their ideas beyond the classroom.

The vision extends far beyond one university. The team wants to build Aegis AI into a scalable privacy infrastructure that any organization can use when adopting AI tools. They're also building a community of users and organizations committed to embedding privacy safeguards into everyday AI use.

For Ege, who says "Chemical Engineering is my course, but I love turning messy ideas into practical products," the win proves that students can tackle real-world problems with immediate impact.

Four strangers, 30 hours, and one solution that could protect millions of people's data as AI becomes part of daily life.