Team ULAB has won the Hackathon on Preventing Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence, competing against 14 teams from 14 universities across the country.

The hackathon was organised by the Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC), which has been implementing the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (UN WSIS) action lines in Bangladesh since 2006. The event brought together students to develop technology-based solutions to address technology-facilitated gender-based violence.

Team ULAB’s winning project, the “NIRBHOY Ecosystem”, aims to turn a smartphone into a privacy-first forensic tool to support victims of digital harassment and abuse. The team said the solution focuses on secure reporting, digital safety and risk management, with live evidence collection secured through blockchain to keep data tamper-proof and legally reliable.

The system also includes artificial intelligence features, including deepfake detection and error level analysis (ELA), aimed at reducing misinformation and false reporting. The team said it also integrates mental health support and a questionnaire-based risk assessment tool to alert users to potential digital threats.

After evaluation, the jury named Team ULAB champion of the hackathon.

The team thanked Professor Muhammad Golam Kibria, head of the CSE department at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB), for mentoring the project. The team members are Saiful Islam and Md Fahad Al Noman.