BISV Hacks 2025

About BISV Hacks 2025

BISV Hacks 2025 marked our inaugural hackathon, bringing together over 70 passionate students from across the Bay Area. Held on March 1st, 2025, at BASIS Independent Silicon Valley, the event was a tremendous success that showcased the incredible talent and creativity of our participants.

The theme of our hackathon was to address issues of social justice and promote social good, which challenged participants to create innovative solutions addressing real-world problems. Throughout the day, students worked tirelessly on projects ranging from environmental sustainability to educational technology.

Participants had access to mentorship from industry professionals, engaging workshops, and networking opportunities. The event featured guest speakers from leading tech companies who shared their insights and experiences with the innovators.

Judges and Guest Speakers

Nicolas Bievre

Judge and Guest Speaker

Nicolas Bievre is a Machine Learning Engineer at Meta with over seven years of industry and research experience in machine learning, recommender systems, and generative AI, with applications in digital advertising, personalization, and bioinformatics. After graduating from Stanford University and Ecole Centrale Paris where he contributed to the field through peer-reviewed research published in leading AI and bioinformatics journals, he then joined the industry to enhance his expertise in large-scale ML-based recommender systems at AI-leading companies such as Meta, PayPal, Google, and Amazon.

Akash Sahoo

Judge and Guest Speaker

Akash Sahoo has a decade of industry expertise in AI, Speech, Computer Vision, and Robotics. He has co-founded three startups and is currently focused on developing large-scale Speech-to-Text models and advancing reasoning capabilities in Large Language Models at Samsung Research America. In his free time, he enjoys hiking and participating in hackathons on weekends.

Karan Kumar Ratra

Judge

Karan Kumar Ratra is an innovative E-Commerce Systems Architect and Technology Leader specializing in Retail Technology Innovation. With over 15 years of experience in industries like Telecom, FinTech, and E-Commerce, Karan has a proven track record of architecting large-scale systems and fostering innovation. He currently serves as an Engineering Leader at Walmart, where his work drives advancements in fulfillment systems and e-commerce technology. Recognized globally, Karan is a LinkedIn Top Voice in Software Design, Engineering Management, and Systems Design, a Top 1% ADPList Mentor, and an award-winning technology expert with numerous accolades, including Walmart's Impact Award. Beyond his professional achievements, he actively mentors young engineers and contributes as a judge and mentor at prestigious hackathons like HackMIT, CalHacks, and HackPrinceton.

Pulkit Goel

Judge

Pulkit Goel is a seasoned technology professional with over 17 years of experience, specializing in advertising technology (Ad Tech). Throughout his career, he has worked at industry leaders like Yahoo and Activision Blizzard, as well as several startups, where he played a key role in building and scaling high-impact platforms that serve millions of users worldwide. With a passion for problem-solving and mentorship, Pulkit loves sharing his knowledge and helping others grow in the ever-evolving world of technology.

Seetaram Rayarao

Guest Speaker

Seetaram Rayarao is a Senior Vice President and Tech Lead at JPMorgan Chase in Delaware. He brings over 17 years of experience in AI-driven solutions, cloud computing, and microservices architecture. Recently, he led the development of our LLM Suite application—a cloud-based AI platform integrating Large Language Models and Retrieval Augmented Generation. This platform delivers real-time, context-aware insights to more than 200,000 developers across the firm, significantly enhancing productivity, compliance, and security.

Winners

🏆 First Place

Elora

A revolutionary brainwave-powered emotion tracking system using EEG technology to help people understand their emotions without words. Using the Muse S Gen 2 headset, Elora analyzes brain activity in real-time, providing AI-powered visualization of emotional states and personalized coping strategies, particularly beneficial for veterans and those who struggle with verbal expression.

Team: Elora Team

🥈 Second Place

Bias News Detector

An AI-powered tool that identifies and analyzes bias in news articles and media content, helping readers make informed decisions about their information sources through advanced natural language processing and transparent bias analysis.

Team: FND

🥉 Third Place

Pocket Therapy

An accessible mental health platform combining AI-powered facial emotion detection with a therapeutic chatbot. Features include "The Garden," a calming virtual space with relaxation tools, making mental health support available to those who may not have access to traditional therapy services.

Team: Pocket Therapy Team