The Thunder Bolt

This past year, one of our Concordia Alumni along with 3 of her teammates earned first place in the prestigious HACK Harvard competition. Her team’s innovative project set them apart in a field of extremely talented students from around the world, highlighting the impressive global impact Concordia alumni continue to make. Quynh Anh, who currently attends Stanford University, graduated from Concordia Hanoi in 2024 and is expecting to graduate from Stanford in 2028. 

Her three teammates who all currently attend Virginia Tech, were Khoi, Phuc and Albert. Khoi and Phuc both previously attended Concordia Hanoi as well. Their last member, Albert, is Phuc’s roommate at Virginia Tech. While Quynh Anh has not yet declared her major, her teammates are majoring in electrical engineering, computational modeling, and data analytics and math. 

The 36-hour HackHarvard competition attracts more than 1,000 undergraduate participants from around the world, although most teams come from U.S. colleges. Teams compete and engage in intensive collaboration, building projects from scratch in an entirely student-run setting designed for those interested in technology and computer science.​ To enter HackHarvard, students must submit a resume and be selected from the application pool. This year, over 100 teams took part. 

The team was actually formed in an informal manner as what began as a joke among all of them eventually led to a committed decision to form a team and participate in the competition after a late September meetup. The team’s initial concept focused on creating a pillow that could help users achieve better sleep in less time. However, recognizing a broader need within the healthcare sector, their vision evolved into developing a post-surgery pillow inspired by the potential impact such a product could have for patient comfort and recovery. 

The event’s structure allows for a wide array of project types, but the team’s hardware-focused solution distinguished itself: they produced a medical post-surgery pillow capable of tracking patient movement and temperature. This set their group apart as most of their competitors were creating software only solutions such as apps. The group built their device almost entirely during the event’s time window, with little prior work, picking up some materials from home depot and using only impromptu collaboration at the hackathon itself.​ 

Other noteworthy projects at the competition included VR glasses that help blind people navigate their surroundings using auditory alerts and an emergency system for use during disasters that is able to operate without internet access. Many of these innovative solutions highlighted the power of technology to improve lives and address real-world challenges faced by communities today.

One of the main challenges was team collaboration, as the participants had never worked together on a big project before and were uncertain about each other’s strengths and preferred workflows. In addition to this, the team had limited experience with hardware construction, which made building their prototype the most challenging aspect of the competition. However, they viewed this obstacle as the highlight of their journey, as it allowed them to grow by problem-solving together and they ultimately succeeded through teamwork and perseverance. The team reflected that working through these difficulties deepened their collaboration and made their achievement all the more meaningful. Another highlight from the experience included spending time together and being able to stay in Boston over the weekend. 

Despite aiming for a category prize, the team exceeded even their own goals by winning first place overall at Hack Harvard. The team reflected that understanding prize criteria and conducting early project research could further improve results in the future.​ While the team initially doubted their chances of winning, Albert stood out as the only member who genuinely believed in the team’s potential to earn high recognition at this rigorous competition. After the event,, the group reflected on the experience and realized the valuable lesson learned from Albert—which is to always believe in yourself.

The team plans to continue developing their post-surgery pillow project. They have recently met with a research mentor seeking further funding and have aspirations to turn their idea into a startup. They are also preparing for upcoming hackathons, including Stanford’s Hackathon in February, and are contemplating future entries in HackHarvard. Once again, congratulations to these talented students for being the 2025 HACK Harvard Champions! We all can not wait to see what you will do next.

Learn more about Concordia Hanoi's alumni.