UFAZ’s Recent Graduates Win Second Place at the Openwave Hackathon

The ExaMinds team, featuring 2026 graduates of the French-Azerbaijani University (UFAZ) Chingiz Khankishiyev, Murad Nuraliyev, and Elnur Hagverdiyev, has been awarded second place at the Openwave Open Innovation Hackathon, jointly organized by the Innovation and Digital Development Agency (IDDA) and the Narimanov District Executive Authority of Baku.

Organized to strengthen young people's technology and entrepreneurship skills while fostering collaboration between government institutions and innovators, the hackathon attracted more than 150 team applications. Following the selection process, only 15 teams advanced to the final stage, where they presented their innovative solutions to the judging panel.

The ExaMinds team developed a comprehensive digital platform designed to predict, detect, and facilitate the rapid resolution of urban infrastructure issues. As part of the project, the team first created a 3D model of the city, combining satellite data with information on the permeability of surface layers and precipitation levels. This enabled the system to predict which areas of the city are likely to experience water accumulation and assess the severity of potential flooding under different rainfall intensities.

Another key component of the project is an intelligent monitoring system powered by Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision technologies. The model is capable of automatically detecting urban infrastructure issues such as road cracks, overflowing waste bins, dry grass, and similar problems. It can be integrated with cameras installed on vehicles or in public spaces, allowing it to identify an issue, capture an image, transmit its location and details to the relevant government authority, and automatically generate a task for its resolution.

As part of the hackathon's main challenge, the team also developed a mobile application that enables citizens to report issues they encounter throughout the city directly to government authorities. Using the application, users can simply take a photo of a problem and submit it through the platform. The request is then automatically forwarded to the relevant authority, registered in the system, and tracked throughout the resolution process.

The projects were evaluated based on criteria including the relevance of the idea, technical implementation, innovation, and user experience. The ExaMinds team secured second place and received a 3,000 AZN cash prize.

At the conclusion of the hackathon, participants were invited to an award ceremony attended by members of the Milli Majlis and representatives of the Narimanov District Executive Authority. During the event, opportunities for future collaboration between the participating teams and government institutions were also discussed.