Hen Street Hacks 2025: A Fintech Innovation Hackathon
From August 13–15, 2025, the University of Delaware’s (UD) First State AI Institute and the NSF-SCIPE DARSE Center hosted the third annual Hen Street Hacks hackathon at UD’s FinTech Innovation Hub. The three-day event gathered 53 participants, university students, high school students, faculty, and industry mentors, to tackle 11 real-world FinTech case studies: from forecasting economic trends to optimizing state spending and creating personalized shopping experiences, and creating ROI based on college degree and majors, using AR to make live events more engaging, among others.
INDUSTRY-DRIVEN CHALLENGES
Case studies came from leading financial and technology organizations, including Adaptive Connections, Bank of America, Best Egg, JPMC, Mooves, Perpay, Sallie Mae, Saimeera Cloud, and Venderly. Each team worked alongside dedicated case-study mentors who guided students toward innovative, AI-driven solutions.
Solutions architects from NVIDIA, Google (via SID Global), and Databricks (via Infinitive) also provided on-site support, helping participants integrate advanced platforms, including GPUs, into their projects.
SPONSORS AND SUPPORT
Hen Street Hacks was made possible by generous sponsors: Adaptive Connections, Best Egg, Center for Accelerating Financial Equity (CAFE), Cross River, Sallie Mae, Delaware Technology Park, Databricks, Delaware EPSCoR, Discover, FinTech Innovation Hub, Google, Infinitive, MathWorks, NVIDIA, Tech Impact, and the UD Graduate College. Google, NVIDIA, Databricks, Mathworks, Infinitive, and SID Global provided the Compute resources for the projects.
HACKATHON ITINERARY
- Day 1: The hackathon commenced with remarks from Dr. Sunita Chandrasekaran, who outlined the guidelines for the event. Teams then broke out to review case studies, work with mentors, and begin brainstorming approaches. Midday, Sallie Mae hosted an industry recruitment workshop and one-on-one career development sessions. The day concluded with a lively scrum session, where each team provided two-minute updates on their understanding of the problem, the tools they had tested, and the initial solution directions.
- Day 2: Teams spend most of the day in an intense coding session, working closely with mentors to refine and advance their solutions. The day concluded with the Hackathon Reception and networking event from 5-7 PM featuring Delaware Governor Matt Meyer, UD’s interim president and provost, state delegates, and other honored guests.
- Day 3: Final preparations in the morning, followed by five-minute pitches at the Grand Finale Presentation. Four awards were presented across key categories.
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HACKATHON RECEPTION
The Day 2 reception provided participants with an opportunity to network with high-profile guests. Governor Matt Meyer, a long-time advocate for education and community-driven solutions, shared remarks with the teams. U.S. Senator Chris Coons sent a video message emphasizing the national importance of AI in fintech: “As we live through rapid technological development in AI, we have to look forward to the future, trusting YOU will continue to lead us forward safely and responsibly.”
Other attendees included Laura Carlson (Interim President of UD), Bill Farquhar (Interim Provost), Pam Norris (Dean of the College of Engineering), FinTech Co-Directors Gang Wang and Nektarios Georgios Tsoutsos, and many others. A special thanks went to Mike Bowman, President and CEO of Delaware Technology Park, whose organization owns the FinTech Innovation Hub building and has been instrumental in connecting academia with industry.
Award Winners
Creativity & Originality
Mentor: Marcus Smith, Moooves, Inc.
Members: Tejas Pawar, Teja Sanagala, Anushree Thirukumaran, Yimang Li, Vamsi Kiran Dimmiti
Cybertexts, an AR-powered platform for interactive, AI-enhanced 3D advertising and shared augmented communication.
technical complexity
Mentor: Yan Peng, Bank of America
Members: Andrew Kallai, Teddy Katayama, Saish Padhye, Om Dinesh Tilekar
Team Bank of America – Real-time prediction of U.S. consumer spending using transaction data.
remarkable impact
Mentor: Rich Jester, JPMC.
Members: Giorgi Gvalia, Mohadeseh Ghafoori, Aiden Gamble, Kamil Chaudhry, Zahra Temory
Team Fiscal Force – Dashboard revealing abnormalities in Delaware’s public expenditure data.
problem statement execution
Mentor: Mike Urban, Best Egg
Members: Nathan Graddon, Ashok Kurapati, Lois Ifeanyichukwu, Snehal Kalke, Tery Miglioisi
Search and Solve Squad – AI Slackbot to streamline employee navigation of complex internal portals.
Mentor Reflections
Bank of America: “Students approached problems differently, coding everything in the cloud and pushing beyond traditional tools.”
Mooves: “Teams exceeded expectations by innovating on AR cybertexts, creating new possibilities for localized digital advertising.”
Sallie Mae: “The collaboration was impactful for both students and industry, with outcomes that will inform future business processes.”
JPMC: “Projects demonstrated the value of open government data, with dashboards offering eye-opening insights for taxpayers.”
Best Egg: “Student-driven solutions aligned with industry needs and are already influencing ongoing production processes.”
Venderly: “Immediate deployment of hackathon outputs showed the practical value of the event and sparked new collaborations.”
Adaptive Connections: “Reinforced the importance of AI verification and governance in industry use cases.”
lasting impact
Mentors praised the creativity, technical skill, and drive of the participants, noting that many solutions have potential for real-world deployment. Students gained hands-on experience with advanced AI platforms, direct exposure to industry leaders, and the chance to present to high-profile stakeholders.
All solutions and code are published publicly under the NSF-DARSE GitHub account: Hackathon 2025 Repository.
Looking ahead
Hen Street Hacks continues to showcase the power of collaboration between academia, industry, and government in accelerating fintech innovation. The NSF DARSE Center and the First State AI Institute remain committed to expanding opportunities for students and supporting industry with cutting-edge AI and software engineering talent.
