The XenoTech team won the first edition of the Cluj AI Buildathon with Icebreakr, an artificial intelligence assistant designed for people attending the Electric Castle festival for the first time. The competition brought together more than 100 participants and generated 19 AI-powered projects aimed at solving real-world challenges in business, public administration, healthcare, education, and infrastructure. Icebreakr helps users plan their festival experience through personalized recommendations for transportation, accommodation, budgeting, and lineup discovery. The winning team consists of Adrian Ardelean, Bogdan Filip, and Akan Narcis Ali. “We built a prototype that demonstrates the strategic value of the solution, not just our team’s technical capabilities. Beyond serving festival attendees, the AI assistant we created generates structured insights into audience behavior at scale, providing organizers, partners, and sponsors with a level of operational and strategic intelligence that the events industry has lacked until now. Together with Akan Ali and Bogdan Filip, we built for the real needs of Electric Castle and focused on telling a relevant story before presenting the product,” said Adrian Ardelean, software engineer and AI consultant. He also highlighted the value of the competition experience: “Cluj AI Buildathon was an extremely valuable experience, both through access to mentors and practical feedback, and through the high quality of the projects. There is real momentum in Romania’s tech ecosystem right now.” AI Solutions for festivals, healthcare, and investments Second place went to the EC Bros team with Festival OPS, an AI-powered platform for festivals and large-scale events. The solution provides attendees with information on transportation, accommodation, budgets, weather, and schedules, while also generating personalized plans for first-time participants. At the same time, it delivers valuable insights to organizers about audience needs and challenges. Third place was awarded to the Nexus OncoBot team, composed of Alexandru Ghiuruță and Bogdan Coste, who developed an AI chatbot designed for oncologists. The solution addresses a major challenge in healthcare: the growing volume of oncology research and clinical data available through sources such as PubMed and ClinVar, and the difficulty of quickly identifying relevant information for individual patients. Nexus OncoBot is focused on genomics and oncology research, transforming the latest studies into an accessible and easy-to-use format while providing verifiable sources for every generated response. “Participating in Cluj AI Buildathon was an intense and valuable experience for me. In just a few days, we went through everything involved in rapidly building a product: brainstorming, research, development, debugging, pitching, and making countless decisions under pressure,” said Alexandru Ghiuruță. He added that the award represents more than recognition for the team’s efforts: “For us, this prize is not only recognition of the work we put into the buildathon, but also confirmation that the problem we are trying to solve is real and important. It motivates us to continue developing the product and to further validate it together with medical and research specialists.” Fourth place went to the InnoiNVest team, which developed a solution that combines multiple data flows to generate personalized reports designed to help potential investors evaluate Romania as an investment destination. The Marketing OS team ranked fifth with an AI platform that fully automates performance marketing campaigns, from content generation to budget optimization. More than 100 participants and 19 projects developed Cluj AI Buildathon attracted 101 participants who developed 19 AI-based projects focused on shaping the future of Cluj-Napoca and the wider region. All teams wishing to continue developing their solutions will receive mentorship support until Transylvania Demo Day, scheduled to take place in July. An online pre-selection round will be held on June 25. “Cluj AI Buildathon successfully connected Cluj’s tech talent with companies, organizations, and institutions seeking innovative solutions to real challenges in their day-to-day operations. The competition challenges originated from concrete needs within the community and business environment, and the participating teams demonstrated their ability to rapidly transform these ideas into products with real implementation potential and impact,” said Diana Ardelean, Executive Director of ROTSA. Romania’s Digitalization in the Age of AI The competition also hosted the panel discussion “Romania’s Digitalization in the AI Era,” moderated by Cristian Dascălu, President of ROTSA. Participants included Emil Boc, Mayor of Cluj-Napoca; Cătălin Giulescu, President of the Authority for the Digitalization of Romania; Claudiu Salanță, Chief Architect of Cluj County Council; Ionuț Drăgan, CEO of Argonian; and Cristian Gheorghe, Business Development Eastern Europe at Prysmian. “The Cluj of the future is a city where technology works for people, not only for robots. Cluj has all the ingredients needed to become a successful city where technology improves everyday life, protects jobs, creates better-paid employment opportunities, attracts major investments, and offers every citizen the chance to enjoy a higher quality of life through technology,” said Emil Boc. The event also featured a Live Robotics Demo organized through the Robotech Girls in Transylvania project, bringing together high school robotics teams from across Cluj-Napoca. Cluj AI Buildathon was co-organized by INNO (North-West RDA), and the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, bringing together public institutions, universities, companies, and organizations from the regional innovation and technology ecosystem.