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Published on
Friday, 9 October 2026
FTEIC ITS students once again achieve success on the international stage. This time, through a competition centered on Artificial Intelligence for the world of education. The innovation they brought has successfully advanced to the final round at the global level.
Surabaya, FTEIC ITS – Tim EduVent ITS has successfully advanced to the Grand Final of HackaSTONE: The Global Agentic AI Competition 2026, an international competition in the field of Artificial Intelligence for Education that will be held on October 29–30, 2026, at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), the Netherlands. The team is represented by two students from the Department of Information Systems, namely Aldiez Rizkia Centrinova (2023 batch) and Dinny Maria Pical (2024 batch).
HackaSTONE 2026 carries the theme “Agentic AI for Education” with the concept “HackATHON Through CAPstone,” and is organized by The Association of Global AI Technomics, Education and Exchange (GATEE). The competition is open to university students from various countries to develop AI assistants applicable to higher education, K–12, preschool & special needs education, vocational & professional education, and lifelong learning. The competition is global in scale, involving more than 50 universities from around 20 countries across Asia, Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Australia, with more than 150 teams participating.
According to Aldiez, information about HackaSTONE 2026 was first obtained from their supervising lecturer, Ir. Achmad Holil Noor Ali, M.Kom. There was initial hesitation due to the large scale of the competition and the international participants involved, but encouragement from their supervising lecturer motivated them to be brave enough to try, while remaining supported by thorough preparation and competence.
The selection process for HackaSTONE 2026 was lengthy, beginning with team registration until March 31, 2026, followed by a university nomination stage, and a project submission stage consisting of a project description and a presentation video of up to eight minutes, which had to be submitted before July 1, 2026. Each university was only allowed to nominate a maximum of three teams to the semifinal stage. During this process, Tim EduVent ITS competed against teams from internationally reputable universities, such as Nanyang Technological University (NTU), National University of Singapore (NUS), and Tsinghua University. The finalist announcement was made on August 15, 2026, and Tim EduVent ITS was declared one of the finalists representing ITS and Indonesia at the Grand Final.
The project submitted by Tim EduVent ITS is EduVent: An AI-Integrated Adventure Learning Management System for Project-Based Learning. EduVent was developed to address three main problems in digital learning: learning patterns that still stop at delivering materials and assignments, suboptimal student engagement, and the administrative burden on teachers in documenting student progress. Unlike conventional Learning Management Systems, EduVent transforms learning achievements into quests and challenges, where students act as digital explorers who earn Experience Points (XP) and Growth Points (GP) through projects, reflections, and collaborative activities that are automatically recorded into a digital portfolio and learning CV.
For teachers, EduVent provides a Lesson & Quest System, Student Dashboard & Portfolio System, Task Manager, EduVent School, automated task and assessment management, as well as AI Learning Analytics to support personalized learning. The system has been implemented at SMPN 9 Madiun, SMP Islam Al Azhar 13 Surabaya, and the Digital Innovation Study Program at ITS, with more than 450 active users. From this implementation, the automated portfolio feature achieved an 80 percent success rate, teacher administrative time was reduced by up to 40 percent, and student engagement in learning increased by up to 70 percent.
EduVent itself was developed by a team of eight students from various departments, including Informatics Engineering, Information Systems, and Medical Technology. Through an internal nomination process with their supervising lecturer, Aldiez and Dinny were selected to represent the team at the Grand Final in Amsterdam. Within the team, Aldiez serves as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), responsible for overall team coordination, determining the development strategy, and communicating EduVent’s concept and value proposition. Meanwhile, Dinny serves as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), managing the team’s financial and operational needs, including budget preparation and ensuring the project’s administrative readiness.
The biggest challenge faced by the team, according to Aldiez and Dinny, was not only technical, but also mental and related to maintaining confidence and consistency amid competition with teams from major universities around the world. Deadline pressure was also felt, as the process of refining the product and completing submissions had to be done alongside academic responsibilities, including during the Final Semester Evaluation (EAS) period.
Ahead of the Grand Final, the team is undergoing intensive preparation, both technical and non-technical. On the technical side, the team continues to refine the EduVent system to ensure all features run stably during the live demo, while also preparing pitch materials for the 10-minute presentation session and 5-minute Q&A session before the judges. A series of presentation simulations were conducted in stages, starting with lecturers from the Department of Information Systems who studied in the Netherlands, followed by the Head of the Department of Information Systems, and finally before the Vice Rector I of ITS. On the non-technical side, the team is also handling matters such as the Schengen visa, flight tickets, accommodation, insurance, travel documents, and funding applications, all while continuing their academic coursework.The HackaSTONE 2026 Grand Final will take place on October 29–30, 2026, at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, as part of the Dutch Conference on AI for Education.
The team’s main target at the Grand Final is to win First Prize, the highest award given to a maximum of five winners. Aldiez and Dinny hope that this achievement can serve as proof that AI-based educational innovations developed by Indonesian students are capable of competing at the global level, while also opening up broader opportunities for collaboration to further develop EduVent.
To fellow FTEIC ITS students who wish to take part in similar competitions in the field of AI and technology, Aldiez advises them not to feel inferior when facing international-scale competitions, and to be brave enough to seize big opportunities backed by hard work and thorough preparation. In the same spirit, Dinny emphasizes the importance of starting small, building a complementary team, and not hesitating to seek guidance from lecturers as part of the learning process. (Humas-Sh)