The Digital Greenhouse welcomed 33 students from across three Guernsey secondary schools this month for the 2025 Digital Innovators Student AI Hackathon.
Students from Blanchelande College, Elizabeth College, and The Sixth Form Centre came together for a fast-paced, creative challenge with the brief of: “Build out a plan for an AI model to predict and reduce energy consumption in school buildings and homes.”
The Digital Innovators Programme is designed to help students begin shaping their career journey by exploring exciting opportunities in tech, building practical skills, and preparing for future employment.
Sponsored by 1st Central and run in partnership with University College London, the students worked in small teams, to research, ideate, and develop their AI-driven solutions.
They had expert support from mentors including Paulius Volskis (UCL/Meganexus), Steph Luce, and David Carney (CI Information Security and Data Governance Forums).
The hackathon is timely as AI continues to rapidly transform the world of work, with the mentors adding how hard it is to predict exactly what jobs will look like in the years ahead.
Jenny De La Mare and Estelle Moseley from the Digital Greenhouse, also provided guidance, as the students were expected to manage their time, delegate tasks, conduct research and build a presentation.
Judge and mentor Paulius Volskis from UCL said: “It was a real privilege to mentor such a driven and imaginative group of young participants. Their enthusiasm for problem-solving and their curiosity about technology was genuinely inspiring. Events like this not only build technical skills, but also spark confidence and that’s what makes them so powerful.”
Each team presented their solutions to a panel of expert judges, featuring Mr Volskis, Paul Torode (1st Central), and Rollo de Sausmarez (UN1TY), who noted the high quality and creativity of all the teams’ ideas.
Winners: OptiWatt from Elizabeth College
The winners wowed the judges with their innovative end-to-end solution.
The OptiWatt team was made up of Year 10 students: Hamish Buchanan, Tibere Le Conte, Benjamin Le Page, Seth Le Tissier, Sebastian Steer, and Elliott Tyrrell.
Judges praised the team for spotting a creative opportunity to combat “vampire devices” – electronics that drain power in standby – helping users save money and reduce waste.
Dave Costen, Director of Digital Learning at Elizabeth College said: “Participating in the Digital Greenhouse AI Hackathon gave my students the opportunity to tackle a truly challenging, real-world problem.. .the experience not only sharpened their problem- solving and computational-thinking skills but also helped many of them clarify and solidify their future academic and career aspirations.”
An honourable mention went to The Binary Bros from Elizabeth College, who delivered a polished and insightful presentation featuring a prototype and unique sleep-tracking concept, despite having a smaller team.