Harvey Mudd Students Win at SAIRS 2025 Hackathon

Four Harvey Mudd College students earned top recognition at the 2025 SoCal AI Responsibility Summit (SAIRS), held April 19 at UCLA, taking home awards in two major hackathon categories.

The winning team, Leah Uriarte ’28, Nicole Ge ’28, Wendi Zheng ’28 and Zachary Wood ’28—developed FairUseBot, an AI-powered legal assistant designed to help content creators identify fair use and copyright-free materials. The tool offers personalized guidance and generates citations tailored to users ranging from students to social media influencers.

Their project won both the Sentient Chat Agent Challenge and the award for Best Creative Industries and Ethical Content Use.

Uriarte and Ge noted that the experience provided an opportunity to deepen their technical skills while contributing to a socially impactful tool. “One challenge we overcame was finding time to build when we were also busy with classes,” said Uriarte. “But we managed to work through it together. It was also really fun to learn new technologies, like Retrieval Augmented Generation and working extensively with Gemini, Google’s LLM.” Ge added, “It was a fun experience, and I’m excited to participate again next year.”

The students attended SAIRS as part of a trip sponsored by Code the Change, a newly established Harvey Mudd club focused on using technology for social good, and Mudd ECT (Exploring Careers in Tech), which introduces students to tech opportunities beyond traditional pathways. According to club leader Alyssa Sawyer ’26, the conference aligned with Code the Change’s mission of building a community around ethical and impactful tech development. “We wanted to attend SAIRS to connect with others working in this space and to learn more about emerging technologies,” she said.

In previous semesters, Code the Change has collaborated with organizations, including the MIT Jameel Clinic, USA for UNHCR and The Nature Conservancy.

The students’ success at SAIRS highlights Harvey Mudd’s commitment to fostering both technical excellence and socially responsible innovation.