'Principled Innovation' guides students at ASU’s third annual ScaleU hackathon

Nine teams of Arizona State University students spent three days this month designing prototype solutions to real‑world challenges in education and health care during the third annual ASU ScaleU hackathon.

This year’s hackathon was co-organized by Mina Jafarpoor, the Principled Innovation Academy program director. The event focused on ASU’s Principled Innovation framework, which emphasizes character, values and human‑centered impact. Students dug into problems ranging from Arizona’s nursing shortage to student mental‑health gaps to consent processes for sharing health data. At the end, three teams took home prize money for their solutions.

“The problems we gave students, these affect real people right now,” said Philippos Savvides, director of venture acceleration at ASU RealmSpark and one of the hackathon organizers. “If you just optimize the cleverest code, you end up with solutions that look great in a demo and fail the people they're supposed to serve. We made ethical reasoning a core part of the judging criteria because the hardest design decisions aren't technical; they're about whose needs you prioritize and what trade-offs you're willing to accept.”

The framework changed how students thought about problem-solving. Students made decisions grounded in character, values and human‑centered impact. It reshaped how teams approached their projects and, for some students, it completely reframed what problem‐solving meant.

“Principled Innovation really flipped the script for me,” said Maitreyee Atul Deshmukh, an aerospace engineering senior and member of the first‑place team SunDevil Circles. "Instead of jumping straight into features or AI talk, we focused on what it feels like for a student to show up on campus, lost and unsure where to turn when something feels off. I get it, being an international student, I’ve seen firsthand how confusing it is.” 

SunDevil Circles developed a peer‑to‑peer matching platform that connects international first-year students to trained peers based on comfort level, language and availability. The system offers safe check-ins with built-in boundaries, curated resources and escalation protocols when professional intervention is needed. The system tackled a key challenge: 63% of students experiencing mental health challenges do not seek professional help and prefer peer support.  

"Our group wanted to focus on mental health for first-year international students because we had two group members who were international students and could relate to the challenges those students face,” said Jack Montgomery, a senior majoring in computer science and a member of SunDevil Circles. “First‑year international students can feel lost and scared, and we wanted to provide support for them.” 

Deshmukh echoed the sentiment: “Empathy really led the way for us. We kept imagining a student, up late, opening the app because talking to someone feels like too much. That’s why we zeroed in on making everything feel reassuring, clear and full of options. No labels. No judgment. No pressure. Just gentle guidance toward getting help.”

The team also prioritized trust and psychological safety, knowing many international students hesitate to seek help. Their solution allowed students to store concerns locally and receive structured guidance, without being monitored, which was essential.

“AI suggests resources and summarizes ASU information,” said team member Rudheer Reddy Chintakuntla, a junior majoring in computer science. "But it doesn’t diagnose or replace human support. That boundary was directly influenced by Principled Innovation’s emphasis on ethical reflection and understanding unintended consequences.”

Other teams also applied the Principled Innovation framework in unique ways:

• AideEd, the second‑place team, built a campus‑first health navigation tool that flags urgent mental health concerns and directs students to appropriate ASU or community resources without crossing into AI diagnosis. 

• Evexia, which placed third, created a platform that allows students clear control over what health providers can view before they consent. Their guiding idea: “Because ‘I agree’ should mean ‘I understand.’” The team aimed to close gaps in fragmented medical data and strengthen student empowerment.

These varied approaches shared a common theme: responsible innovation. The hackathon wasn’t just about building fast; it was about building responsibly.

These three teams earned a $5,000 prize pool that allows the students to use the money however they choose while serving as an entry point into ASU’s venture pipeline. Winning teams can continue developing their prototypes through programs such as Venture Devils, Changemaker Central and Demo Day.

They won not only for their technical execution, but also their ethical reasoning and meaningful application of ASU's Principled Innovation framework, reinforcing how ASU prepares students to design solutions that serve communities with care.