How I Won 3 Hackathons in My First Two Years of College

How did I win 3 national hackathons in my first two years of college?

First, blessings and grace. Second: locking yourself in a cave for 3 months to build non-stop.

In reality, it's the result of compounding knowledge built project after project. For example, when building Verdict.run, I was literally just learning how to handle authentication cookies. Competitive problem solving with the ICPC HUE Community was another major foundation.

The journey started when my teammate Abdelrahman Mohsen and I competed in the summer of our freshman year, securing 3rd place nationwide at the Sustainable Innovation National Summit in Tanta.

Across those competitions, our process stayed consistent: identify a problem with a clear user, build the smallest convincing demo, test the risky technical path early, and use the final hours for reliability and storytelling. The projects were different, but the same loop—research, prototype, validate, and present—made each following hackathon faster and more focused.

We kept pushing and won 2 more national hackathons in our sophomore year: - 2nd Place at the Google Developers Group (GDG Delta) Hackathon (February 18, 2026). - 3rd Place at the LUXSAI AI Hackathon (March 29, 2026).