Kettering University

Three Kettering University students took first place in the FinTech track at Hack Dearborn 4, a hackathon hosted on October 11th and 12th, 2025, at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Andrew Ricard, Ansh Suryavanshi, and Melvin Cloud earned the top honor in their track for developing the E-Ink Gift Card, a secure, battery-free, NFC-enabled card featuring an e-ink display that updates dynamically when tapped. Unlike traditional cards, the E-Ink Gift Card displays no static card numbers. Instead, its identifiers are fully tokenized and encrypted. Each transaction generates a temporary cryptogram used only during authentication, ensuring card data cannot be copied or reused. The design also enables secure reloading and activation through an accompanying mobile app or point-of-sale system, providing transparent, auditable control for users and merchants alike. Organized in partnership with Major League Hacking (MLH), Hack Dearborn 4 brought together students from across the region for more than 24 hours of coding, collaboration, and problem-solving. The event featured workshops led by Google engineers, networking opportunities, and challenges spanning a range of technical domains, including artificial intelligence and financial innovation.

Two Kettering University students were recognized for their innovation and creativity at the UMake the Change Student Innovation Competition, hosted by the University of Michigan-Flint's Office of Economic Development and funded by the C.S. Mott Foundation. The competition encourages Flint-based college students to apply their classroom knowledge to real-world challenges through innovative product, service, and design ideas. Both students were honored for their inventive approaches to problem-solving and will receive mentorship and business development resources to advance their ideas-reflecting Kettering's commitment to hands-on innovation and industry-driven learning.

Amanda Koziol, Jaydin Freeman and David Glover used the experience they gained at Kettering University to win the Sustainability-Climate Change Mitigation Hack, as well as the MSUFCU-Community Class Act Hack at Michigan State University's ninth annual student-run hackathon, SpartaHack 9. Over 600 student developers and designers gathered at Michigan State University in East Lansing on January 27th, 2024, with a unifying challenge: engineer innovative solutions to everyday problems - in just 24 hours. Hackers had to make their projects track-specific, as well as pitch their projects to judges, who used criteria including uniqueness, technical implementation, and practicality.

Ansh Suryavanshi '25 used the experience he gained at Kettering University to win the Hack Dearborn: Disrupt Reality hackathon event Oct. 21. Nearly 200 college students participated in teams of four during the 24-hour event.

The students on Kettering's Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC) team felt stressed ahead of the annual competition, but their hard work earned them a third-place finish. The team, which consisted of the undergraduate and graduate-level Introduction to Autonomous Driving (CE-451 and CE-651) classes, competed June 2-5 at the 30th Annual IGVC at Oakland University in Rochester. It finished third in the Self-Drive Challenge and Fourth in the Self-Drive Design/Presentation. Six teams participated in these challenges. To learn more, click here.