Today we're excited to announce the winners of the Lean AI Solutions Hackathon, with IBM Granite Models, brought to you by IBM TechXchange. This 11 day virtual hackathon invited Developers and problem solvers from around the world to team up with peers and colleagues in teams of up to 5. Participants got free access to education on IBM watsonx and IBM Granite models. When the hackathon started, teams got IBM Cloud accounts with watsonx.ai to build proof-of concept solutions. The challenge: Use IBM Granite to address one of two possible themes:

• Make work less boring

• Decent work and economic growth challenge, brought to you by Call for Code

The judges had their work cut out for them narrowing down the exciting set of submissions to the best of the best!

First place teams

Each first place team wins:

• $5,000 USD

• $500 USD IBM Cloud credits, per team member

• 1 ticket per team member to IBM TechXchange Conference 2025 in Orlando (Tickets are subject to legal pre-approval, are non-transferable, and travel/lodging is not included)

First place for the “Make work less boring” business theme:

Team BrainStormX

Mid-market enterprises especially in consulting, IT, financial services, and product development often face relentless pressure to innovate. But traditional brainstorming workshops don’t always foster equal participation, and they often lack defined agendas. This can result in lengthy, unfocused discussions that may produce some promising but incomplete raw ideas, with important points buried in sticky notes, chat streams, and side conversations. Participants leave without a clear sense of actionable next steps or expected outcomes. Opportunities are missed and employee creativity isn’t fully realized.

BrainStormX is an intelligent brainstorming and collaborative-innovation platform that transforms ideation sessions into structured, inclusive, and execution-ready idea pipelines. All participants can contribute ideas via text. Then the AI platform moderates the workshop, building the agenda, encouraging quieter participants to contribute, and organizing ideas into clustered themes for real-time voting to gain consensus and decide next steps immediately. It also formats ideas into clear problem/solution/value statements and scores ideas based on parameters such as feasibility and cost. An agent even pushes clear actions into a project management system for follow-up.

The BrainStormX solutions uses IBM Granite Models to leverage advanced reasoning, multimodal capabilities, and agentic technologies. The platform includes multi-agent orchestration of IBM Granite 3.3 Foundation models (Granite 3.3 8 B-instruct) to facilitate every phase of the brainstorming workshop. A high-level, multi-phase action plan for the workshop structure is output as JSON to produce a task sequence for the LLM to guide the workshop flow.

Watch their demo

First place for the “Decent work and economic growth challenge, brought to you by Call for Code” theme:

Team DuniAfrika

In Nairobi, over 60% of workers operate in the informal economy – from construction laborers and roadside welders to market vendors and small-scale artisans. These workers power the city's growth but face daily risks from unsafe work conditions, including unregulated equipment, lack of protective gear, unstable structures, and hazardous materials. They also often lack access to formal safety training, regulatory oversight, or employer protections. Injuries and accidents not only harm individuals but also destabilize household incomes, reduce productivity, and strain public health systems – limiting sustainable economic growth.  

Team DuniAfrika built a solution called Linda – an AI-powered safety assistant designed to protect informal sector workers by delivering real-time, personalized safety guidance integrated into a platform they already use daily for communications: WhatsApp. The worker can send a photo of their work environment to Linda on WhatsApp. Linda's AI vision model analyzes the image to detect potential hazards, such as missing protective equipment, unstable structures, exposed wiring, or unsafe machinery. Linda replies instantly, highlighting risks and providing actionable, context-aware recommendations in conversational Swahili or English. Workers can also ask Linda safety-related questions (e.g., "Is it safe to use this ladder?"). Linda responds using a fine-tuned natural language model trained on localized safety protocols adapted for informal work environments. Over time, Linda proactively sends tailored reminders, motivational nudges, and safety tips based on each user's role and typical risks. Linda offers personalized, interactive, real-time, context-aware coaching in the worker's own language and communication style.  

The solution integrates IBM Granite to power both natural language understanding and image analysis. It uses IBM Granite Vision to analyze and process images. The analysis is forwarded to IBM Granite-3-3-8B-Instruct, which interprets the analysis and creates a viable, comprehensible response to the user in their own language or desired format. Granite Instruct also generates responses to users’ text queries. These models continuously improve based on user interactions and feedback.

Additionally, Team DuniAfrika is eligible to be judged in November for the 2025 Call for Code Global Challenge, where the top team will take home $50,000 USD.

Watch their demo

Congratulations as well to our second place winners. Each member of the second place teams will take home Apple Airpod Pros® and $300 USD IBM Cloud Credits. In second place:

• “Make work less boring” theme: Team AlphaCoders — This IBM Granite-powered AI mobile app pulls data from multiple tracking tools to provide software developers with a stress-free way to see a personalized, prioritized summary of their daily tasks, all in one spot.

• “Decent work and economic growth challenge, brought to you by Call for Code” theme: Team Quantum League — A mobile app powered by IBM Granite and watsonx.ai helps gig workers understand their earnings and get paid fairly.
  

This could be you!

IBM TechXchange is hosting a series of worldwide, virtual hackathons throughout 2025! Each hackathon highlights a different watsonx tech focus like IBM Granite or agentic AI, and a new set of challenges to solve with that tech. 

IBM is the founding partner of the Call for Code initiative, now in its 8th year, that calls on problem-solvers around the world to build tech to address social and humanitarian issues. This year Call for Code is integrated into our hackathon series. This means you’ll be able to chose their own adventure within each hackathon; Solve a business use case, or solve a humanitarian issue as part of a Call for Code-sponsored challenge.

Sign up

Registration for our next hackathon is open now!

Hackathon for Progress with RAG and IBM watsonx.ai
May 22 - June 2
Register

Learn more about the program and watch for more hackathons throughout the year:
IBM watsonx Hackathons, brought to you by IBM TechXchange and Call for Code