ICC GLOBAL HACKATHON WINNER UNVEILED AT DUBAI AI FESTIVAL

• Strive were crowned overall winners, taking home USD$5,000 to further develop their web platform for athletes
• The ICC Global Hackathon, powered by Ignyte, was contested by more than 8,500 global participants
• The winning team were showcased to industry experts on the Startup Stage at the Dubai AI Festival

The ICC Global Hackathon, powered by Ignyte, culminated at the Dubai AI Festival, where Strive’s web platform, designed to increase athlete monetisation and discovery, took home the US$5,000 prize.

Strive’s team, consisting of Meddy Mezouani, Oussama Ben Guirat and Syrinne Rouissi, emerged from a global talent pool of over 8,500 participants and were showcased before a global audience of investors, industry experts and government entities on the Startup Stage at the Dubai AI Festival.

Their winning proposal set out a public-first architecture that eliminates visibility gaps in women’s sport and around female athletes across digital platforms.

The ICC Global Hackathon ran as a worldwide innovation challenge designed to reimagine the future of sport. It forms part of the ICC's wider vision to use technology and innovation to unlock new possibilities, while championing next-generation talent as the vehicles for this evolution in the age of AI.

Running throughout 2026, the competition brought together students, startups and scale-ups across the globe and asked applicants to address three problem statements: Sport Visibility & Engagement, Next-Gen Fan Experiences and Athlete Health, Performance & Inclusivity.

The Hackathon also emphasised elevating women in sport, spotlighting technology's role in creating more visibility, inclusivity, and opportunity for women athletes, fans, and technologists.

Every applicant was required to have at least one female member, while the ICC panel of judges also contained a 50-50 split between male and female representatives that span multiple departments across the global governing body.

ICC Head of Digital, Finn Bradshaw, said: “Congratulations to Strive, whose innovation stood out from more than 8,500 global participants and made their proposition so appealing. The worldwide level of interest and creative energy on display was remarkable and demonstrates the enormous appetite to bring new thinking and technology into sport.

“The Global Hackathon was designed to open cricket up to new perspectives and new communities of innovators. We saw the Hackathon as a vital opportunity to proactively build deeper links with the developer community and explore an open-source model that enables digital solutions of the future. Our winners are proud reflections of this ethos, and we look forward to seeing how these ideas can benefit our sport, its stakeholders and audiences.”

Strive CMO, Syrinne Rouissi, said: “We are so excited and so happy to win this award, thank you so much the ICC and Ignyte for this. We truly hope that our idea is going to change things for women’s sport, in particular, and bring more visibility with the developed AI system we want to create. We know that, through sport, so much other change can be made.”