The 2026 Cognitive Innovation Competition brought together engineering students for a week of applied innovation at CITech OTU.
This competition was limited to engineering students. It ran from April 2 to April 9, 2026, including the opening and closing ceremonies. The competition is now concluded. Winners from both tracks will be invited to interview for the student research internship.
Track A
Official 2026 ranked winners.
Winning team
Dynamic Digital Twin of the Operator (DDTO) MVP for human-centered SMR control rooms.
Project spotlight
GitHubNewTron focuses on the operator instead of only the plant. Its dynamic digital twin estimates workload, fatigue, and near-term performance degradation using multimodal sensing and edge-based preprocessing. The project stood out for its strong human-factors focus and modular sensing strategy.
Winning team
A cognitive-aware digital twin for nuclear emergency response.
Project spotlight
GitHubCoreVision AI combines a live reactor digital twin, adaptive smart HUD, cognitive load monitoring, and explainable AI guidance for nuclear emergency response. It detects fault causes in real time and simplifies the interface when operator stress rises.
Winning team
A dual-agent decision-support framework for cognitively synchronized SMR control-room operation.
Project spotlight
GitHubDualAgent combines plant monitoring, operator-state awareness, and dual-agent decision support in a single control-room framework. Its main differentiator is attentional gating that delays AI-recommended actions until the operator is cognitively ready and focused on the correct safety-relevant information.
Two tracks. Same prizes for each.