The UH Energy Transition Institute (ETI), in collaboration with the Energy Coalition, hosted the finale of another successful Coogs for Energy Hackathon on October 23鈥�24, where students worked together to create impactful and innovative solutions to real-world energy challenges.
Over the last two years, Coogs for Energy Hackathon has seen continued interest from leading companies and industry partners through sponsorships and has become an excellent opportunity for students to go beyond classroom learning and gain hands-on problem-solving experience while interacting with industry experts who can shape their futures.
鈥淭he Hackathon is intentionally designed to test the power of team science, requiring students from at least two different UH colleges or schools to work together,鈥� said Debalina Sengupta, chief operating officer of ETI. 鈥淧articipants are challenged with a wide range of real-world scenarios, from well-defined technical problems to complex civic challenges with significant socioeconomic dimensions, and they engage with varying levels of mentorship, much like they would in their professional careers. By exposing students to the diversity and complexity of real-world problem-solving, we encourage them to think beyond the boundaries of their coursework and develop solutions that integrate technical, social and economic perspectives.鈥�
Sponsored by bp (prime sponsor) and Repsol (supporting sponsor), this edition of the competition featured 10 multidisciplinary teams representing various UH schools and colleges. Over the ten days leading to the two-day finals, students collaborated with industry partners and academics to respond to 10 distinct problem statements.
These problem statements included challenges such as:
- Canada Energy Exports: Expanding Access to Global Markets (ConocoPhillips)
- The Future of Remote Operations: Robotics, AI, and Human-Machine Collaboration (Chevron)
- Empower Civic Action for Resilience (Keep Houston Beautiful)
- Provide an Uninterrupted Power Supply to Enable Safe, Sustainable, and Environmentally Friendly Offshore Production (bp)
- Smart Pipeline Operations: Move More, Spend Less, Stay Safe(Siemens)
- Distributed Compute and Power: Aligning Hyperscaler, Grid, and Community Needs (Vistra Corp)
- Creating Value from Produced Water: Recovering Critical Minerals (Chord Energy)
Teams on Day 1 preparing for their presentations to mentors
Teams explored their assigned challenges, defining the scope of the problem and developing potential frameworks for innovation. Guided by industry mentors from Chevron, bp, Tricon Energy, ConocoPhillips, Siemens, and Vistra Corp, among others, along with UH faculty and experts, on October 23, teams presented three early-stage solutions using a design decision matrix and received real-time, in-person feedback from mentors.
鈥淚 think some of the solutions that are coming from the students are very innovative. I challenged my team to think more broadly, so I gave them a problem set, but told them, 鈥楧on鈥檛 let this be defined by one single solution; think of all the possible avenues that can be pursued鈥�,鈥� said Victor Barcot, Vice President of Chord Energy and mentor for team Catalyst Six.
Students appreciated this learning opportunity where they could relate their classroom learning and apply them to real challenges facing the world today. Muhammad Osama Minhas, an economics major in Team Watt鈥檚 Up, stated that he has noticed a connection between his classes and energy. 鈥淚've actually learned a great deal about how energy, or how everything, plays into the business side of things in my economics classes. So that's been helpful to me,鈥� said Minhas.
On October 24, teams pitched their top solutions, built digital or physical prototypes, and presented their solutions to a panel of judges for a chance to win cash awards: $6,000 for first place, $3,000 for second, and $1,500 for third. On the panel were Carolina Rio, director of Plug and Play Tech Center; Sathish Balasubramanian, technical director of Repurposing Offshore Infrastructure for Continued Energy (ROICE); and Uday Turaga, ADI Analytics founder and CEO.
Prototype of Team Energy Drinkers 2.0 for the problem Provide an Uninterrupted Power
Supply to Enable Safe,
Sustainable, and Environmentally Friendly Offshore Production
Prototype of Team Catalyst Six for the problem Creating Value From Produced water: Recovering Critical Minerals.
鈥淭hese presentations are a great way to expose students to the complexity of the energy industry and the exciting things that are happening in energy. We need to expose more people to the fact that energy is an exciting industry, and that's what this is accomplishing,鈥� Turaga said about the presentations and real-world experience this gives to students.
The judges evaluated team presentations based on technical rigor, feasibility, innovation, scalability, and clarity of communication.
At the end of some truly exciting pitches, the winners of the Fall 2026 Coogs for Energy Hackathon were
- Team Catalyst Six (1st place). They worked on the problem statement 鈥淐reating Value from Produced Water: Recovering Critical Minerals鈥�, assigned by Chord Energy.
- Team Watt鈥檚 Up (2nd place). Their challenge statement was 鈥淓ngineer the Waste Out, Not the Safety: Reducing Overdesign in Energy Assets鈥�, assigned by Siemens.
- Team Energy Drinkers 2.0 (3rd place). Their problem statement was assigned by bp and was 鈥淧rovide an Uninterrupted Power Supply to Enable Safe, Sustainable, and Environmentally Friendly Offshore Production.鈥�
The three winning teams: Team Catalyst Six (1st place); Team Watt鈥檚 Up (2nd place); Team Energy Drinkers 2.0 (3rd place)
"We're incredibly proud of what our team accomplished. Every member of our team brought a unique perspective, and together we developed a solution that was stronger than anything we could have created individually,鈥� said Rana Muhammad Haris, member from the winning team Catalyst Six. 鈥淲inning is exciting, of course, but the hands-on experience we gained and the mentorship and feedback from industry experts will stay with us long after the competition. We're grateful to the organizers and mentors for making this experience possible."
Fall 2026 Coogs for Energy Hackathon Mentors
(L to R) Victor Barcot, Ravi Aglave, Brandon Baylor, and Suryanarayanan Radhakrishnan
Three Mentor鈥檚 Choice Awards were also announced.
- Team Space City Energy was awarded the Mentor鈥檚 Choice Award for Due Diligence for their work on the problem statement 鈥淧ersian Gulf Energy Exports: Building Resilient Infrastructure for Long-Term Global Market Access鈥�, provided by ConocoPhillips.
- Team Powerhouse Coogs won the Mentor鈥檚 Choice Award for Best Technical Solution; they worked on the challenge statement 鈥淯nlocking the Subsurface: Advanced Imaging and Digital Technologies for Carbon Storage鈥�, provided by Chevron.
- Team UHnder Pressure won the Mentor鈥檚 Choice Award for Complete Prototype, working on the problem statement 鈥淓mpower Civic Action for Resilience鈥�, provided by Keep Houston Beautiful.