Today I had the opportunity to participate in the NOCODEX Hackathon, an exciting event organized by Howest.

For this hackathon, participants were divided into teams of three to four members, each consisting of an IT student, a business student, and an international student from the Netherlands. Our challenge was provided by Vanden Broele, who tasked us with developing an HR AI chatbot capable of assisting employees with common inquiries—questions whose answers could be found within the internal documents accessible to them.

At the outset, we faced a significant challenge: none of us had prior experience with NOCODEX, a no-code tool based on a drag-and-drop principle. Without traditional coding involved, we had to rethink our approach to building the chatbot from scratch.

After some trial and error, we successfully created a basic version of the chatbot. From there, we refined it by carefully integrating only the essential information it needed to provide accurate responses. By the end of the development process, we had a fully functioning chatbot capable of answering questions in both Dutch and French.

Then came the final judging moment, when companies evaluated our chatbot solutions. After a few suspenseful moments, our team proudly secured third place in the competition—an achievement rewarded with a Kinepolis cinema ticket.

The hackathon was an incredibly rewarding experience, allowing us to collaborate across disciplines, experiment with new technologies, and apply AI in a practical business setting. It was both challenging and inspiring, leaving us with new skills, valuable insights, and a great sense of accomplishment.