
The student team representing Queen’s School of Computing has won first place at the Chengdu 80 Hackathon, and earned both Rednote sponsored awards for Most Popular Team and Most Popular Individual (Rory Macdonald).
The Chengdu 80 World Fintech Product Design & Development Competition is a global event that challenges university students from around the world to design and develop fintech solutions using open-source technologies, based on on real-world scenarios in under 80 hours.

The team arrived in Chengdu late Sunday night and began competing Monday morning. After 76 hours of development, the student group submitted their solution and advanced to presentation day.

This year’s team was led by Captain Chloe Houvardas and included John Li, Wafeeqa Chowdhurym, Rory Macdonald, and Michelle Shi. The team’s performance is especially notable as they were the only all-undergraduate team in the competition.

Special thanks to Retired Professor Wendy Powley and Professor Yuanzhu Chen for joining and supporting the team throughout the competition. We are incredibly proud of the students for their creativity, technical skill, and teamwork, and for representing Queen’s School of Computing so admirably on the international stage.