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🏁 A wrap · 9-day AI hackathon

Lapathon 2026

Building agentic solutions with Ukrainian large language models — 9 days of code, mentorship, and real business cases.

When
January 9–18, 2026
Where
UCU Lviv · KSE Kyiv · Online
Prize pool
$7,500 + $2K cloud
3
Real-world tracks
9
Winning teams
19
Mentors & judges
$9.5K
Prizes + cloud
🏆 Winners

The teams that took it home.

Congratulations to every team for their strong solutions, resilience, and incredible energy. Here are the winners across all three tracks.

🧑‍🏫 Mriia trackAI tutor · sponsored by mono
🥇$1,500
Build Future

Dima Krasnoshlyk · Volodymyr Sanchenko · Kateryna Igolkina · Kateryna Kovalchuk

🥈$1,000
LLMavericks

Mariia Hamaniuk · Maryna Ohinska · Mykhailo Rykhalskyi · Ostap Mnykh · Denys Shcherbyna

🥉$500
Initium

Danylo Beha · Sofia Prutska · Andriy Sheginsky · Alina Parashchiy · Ivan Krutkevych

💻 Genesis trackTabula Rasa Agent · self-learning AI
🥇$1,500
Fly Me To The LUN

Andriy Lysanets · Maxim Yarosh · Oleksandr Kosukha · Artem · Maria Popovych

🥈$1,000
HoHoLLM

Yuliia Martynova · Denys Mykhailov · Tymofii Kharin · Pavlo Khomenko · Taras Baraniuk

🥉$500
Bugs As A Service

Vlad Moiseienko · Dmytro Maior · Roman Maior · Andrii Myrosh · Oleh Lozovyi

🕵️ NABU trackData intelligence platform · $1,500 by Automat-IT
🥇$1,500
JustSolution

Mykola Kovalyk · Marian Petlovanyi · Taras Zubachyk · Stanislav Marynovych

🥈2nd place
Lviv Mahjong Club

Kyrylo Reznikov · Vadym Pavlyk · Taras Yaroshko · Bohdan Laba

🥉3rd place
ShocoLapky

Alina Oleshchuk · Yurii Tseplitskiy · Olha Nahurna · Andriy Kukharuk · Maksym Kyrychenko

The challenges

Three real-world tracks.

NABU · Data Intelligence
NABU · Data Intelligence

An AI platform for automated processing of personal data from state and open registries — analyzing connections and surfacing potential violations. Complex tasks, responsible data handling, real public-sector impact.

Genesis · Tabula Rasa Agent
Genesis · Tabula Rasa Agent

A universal AI agent capable of continuous self-learning — acquiring knowledge through dialogue, resolving conflicting information, solving complex tasks from experience, and explaining decisions with reference to its learning history.

Mriia · AI Tutor
Mriia · AI Tutor

Build an AI tutor that turns a topic into a structured outline, helps learners understand without spoon-feeding answers, and generates adaptive, personalized tests — working with real data and agentic validation via Lapa.

How it ran

Nine days, start to demo.

Jan 9
Kick-off

Opening ceremony at UCU, teams start on projects.

Jan 10–11
Lecture days

Talks from speakers, online and offline.

Jan 12–16
Build + mentorship

Deep work with dedicated mentor support.

Jan 17
Submission deadline

Projects submitted for judging.

Jan 18
Demo & awards

Final presentations and winners at UCU.

Lecture series

Talks throughout the week.

01Sat, Jan 10 · 13:00
How not to lose a hackathon
Vladyslav Humennyy · ML Researcher, Lapa LLM
02Sat, Jan 10 · 14:30
Vibe Coding: building with AI today
Kostiantyn Hlomozda · Head of AI, DevRain
03Sun, Jan 11 · 14:00
Optimizing AI agent efficiency
Mark Motliuk · Tech Lead, Genesis
04Wed, Jan 14 · 18:00
Startup Reality: how founders build today
Michael Perevoznyk · Investment Analyst, Flyer One Ventures
Mentors

Experts who guided the teams.

Hanna Yuklymenko
Research Engineer, ETH AI Center
Artur Kiulian
Founder, OpenBabylon
Nazarii Drushchak
GenAI DS Lead, SoftServe
Vladyslav Mykhailyshyn
PhD, R&D Lead · Lviv Polytechnic
Anton Bazdyrev
NLP Lead · PhD student, KPI & KSE
Vladyslav Melnyk
Principal MLOps / LLMOps, AWS
Yurii Paniv
Data Scientist · Lapa LLM lead
Roman Kyslyi
Head of NLP Lab, KSE
Dmytro Ovcharenko
AI CTO, Ministry of Digital Transformation
Illia Tkach
AI Engineer, mono
Grigoriy
Systems & Business Analyst · LAPA
Judges

Who scored the projects.

Projects were judged on three equally weighted criteria: Idea, Realization, and Presentation.

Oles Dobosevych
Acting Dean, Applied Sciences, UCU
Dmytro Voitekh
AI Lead, Mriia · Advisor, Min. of Economy
Viacheslav Miekh
Product Manager, Mriia
Valerii Buslaiev
Lecturer, KPI · Detective, NABU
Roman Herasymenko
Lead AI R&D, mono
Pavel Kushneryk
Senior Backend Engineer, Solidgate
Alexey Rumyantsev
Head of Engineering, Copymind (Genesis)
Mark Motliuk
Tech Lead, Genesis
Partners & supporters

Lapathon 2026 was made possible by them.

A heartfelt thank you for the prize funds, real-world cases, venues, and cloud infrastructure that powered nine days of building.

mono
General partner
mono
$3,000 prize fund
Genesis
Special partner
Genesis
Track + $3,000 prizes
Automat-IT
Prize partner
Automat-IT
$1,500 · NABU track
SoftServe & NVIDIA
Cloud partner
SoftServe & NVIDIA
$2,000 cloud credits
Mriia
Case partner
Mriia
AI tutor track
NABU
Case partner
NABU
Anti-corruption bureau
APPS UCU
Main venue
APPS UCU
Lviv · official program
KSE
Venue partner
KSE
Kyiv space
With support from the Lapa LLM team and the Zaduha channel.

This is only the beginning. 🚀

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