A team that included a Filipino biomedical engineering student earned the Student Choice Award at an international innovation and entrepreneurship competition in Hong Kong for developing an artificial intelligence-powered learning tool designed to support personalized education.
The Asian EDVentures Competition 2026, hosted by the Education University of Hong Kong and co-organized by nine institutions across Asia and the Middle East, gathered interdisciplinary student teams that proposed solutions to social and education-related challenges.
More than 200 entries were submitted, with only 19 teams advancing to the final round held in Hong Kong from May 26 to 28.
Among the finalists was Team Spotix from Ajman University, composed of BSc Biomedical Engineering student Jon Zaccary Regala, BSc Computer Engineering student Yousef Ibrahim, BSc Management students Zainab Hakki Hakki and BSc Finance student Asmaa Hakki Hakki, and mentored by Deputy Director of the Ajman University Innovation Center Engr. Wessam Shehieb.
Regala, Ibrahim, and Shehieb represented the team during the final pitch and culminating activities, presenting “Spotix,” an AI-powered plugin that integrates with learning management systems such as Moodle and Google Classroom.
The platform adapts to students’ learning styles through an onboarding questionnaire and provides personalized academic support. It can synchronize lecture recordings with course materials, allow students to mark confusing sections for later review, and generate summaries, assessments, and contextual explanations for self-study.
The innovation earned Team Spotix the Student Choice Award, recognizing its potential contribution to AI-driven educational support.
For Regala, the experience highlighted the importance of global collaboration and learning beyond the classroom.
“It reminded me how big the world is and how much more there is left for me to see and learn. I look forward to applying even a few of these lessons in my journey in biomedical engineering,” he said.
