What if technology could learn when to gently tap you on the shoulder instead of endlessly demanding your attention? That was the mission behind Hackathon Raptors' "Hack for Mental 2025: Harmonic Disruption Edition." This global online event brought together developers, designers, and AI enthusiasts to create mindful technology that respectfully interrupts harmful digital patterns using behavioral psychology, intelligent timing, and the power of gentle intervention.
β― Best: Addiction β Awareness
- β1st Place β Clarity Pro (Team: LEO). A comprehensive mindful browser extension designed from behavioral psychology principles to constructively disrupt harmful digital patterns. Clarity Pro features gentle awareness-building, respectful guidance, and seamless integration into daily browsing without aggressive blocking or shame-based alerts. The extension knows exactly when to interrupt with mindful prompts that empower rather than restrict. "Very impressive, Good job team, multiple features to prevent distraction, effective intelligence, UX is very inviting and easy to follow, Tech stack is modern and modular. Have a good potential for wider market acceptance." β Sai Kalyan Reddy Pentaparthi, Judge
- β2nd Place β Dopamine Diner (Team: Tech Chefs). A revolutionary gamified Chrome extension that transforms digital wellness into an engaging "dining" experience. Users build a healthy "digital diet" by managing ingredients like Grease (doomscrolling), Sugar (quick dopamine), and Greens (mindful content) through playful interventions. The extension gamifies awareness without shaming users for their digital consumption habits. "Highly creative narrative-driven approach that makes digital wellbeing fun and relatable. Impressive integration of UX storytelling and behavioral change." β Sridhar Krishna Korimilli, Judge
- β3rd Place β Eliza: AI Agent Orchestration (Wei) (Team: ELIZA). Enterprise-grade conversational AI agent that transforms habit-building through intelligent timing. Wei features advanced memory systems, real-time search capabilities, and comprehensive analytics. Instead of blocking websites or showing annoying alerts, it provides calm and gentle reminders like breathing prompts after excessive scrolling. "This is a great project. It has a clear goal and does it really well. Instead of blocking websites or showing annoying alerts, it gives calm and gentle reminders. Like breathing prompts or small messages after too much scrolling or switching tabs. It feels helpful, not pushy." β Oleksandr Rudin, Judge
β― Category Winners
- βBest Psychological Impact: Dopamine Diner (Team: Tech Chefs) "Dopamine Diner is one of the most creative and engaging takes on digital wellbeing I've seen. Loved the metaphor and the execution." β Solomon R Chigurupati
- βBest Technical Implementation: Eliza: AI Agent Orchestration (Team: ELIZA) "A well-structured and technically solid project with thoughtful architecture. To better fit the theme, it needs a clearer pattern-breaking or behavioral disruption mechanism." β Tufan KΔ±lΔ±Γ§aslan
- βBest Design & User Experience: Clarity Pro (Team: LEO) "Excellent emotional & aesthetic balance! Adding usage analytics and adaptive logic would further increase impact as a next step." β Natalia Trankova
- βBest Project Presentation: Synapse (Team: Starcode Crusaders) "Synapse has a lot of technological ambition and the seamless syncing is very impressive. I'd love to see this scaled to more platforms." β Sandeep Dommari
β― Our Honored Panel of Judges
- βNisarg Shah β Product Manager with over 8 years in Big Tech (Meta, Amazon), Nisarg specializes in AI/ML product development with a focus on search, recommendations, and personalization. At Meta, he launched and optimized AI/ML systems for Instagram Trends and Facebook groups. Previously at Amazon, he led the 0-to-1 launch of Prime Video Watch Party.
- βAnanda Kanagaraj Sankar β Engineering Leader at Thumbtack and former Uber executive, Ananda brings 13 years of software engineering experience. At Uber, he founded the Elevate Engineering organization and scaled teams from 0 to 20 engineers for aviation systems. As an entrepreneur, he founded Sumatak Technologies, focusing on AI solutions for Enterprise SaaS.
β― Key Takeaways
- βTechnology That Knows When to Step In β From gentle breathing prompts to gamified awareness-building, participants demonstrated that the most effective digital wellness tools don't block or shame β they intelligently interrupt with perfect timing.
- βPsychology Is the Ultimate Design Framework β Projects like Dopamine Diner proved that understanding human behavior and cognitive patterns is essential for creating technology that truly serves user wellbeing rather than exploiting psychological vulnerabilities.
- βGentle Disruption Beats Aggressive Blocking β Teams showed how respectful, awareness-building approaches that empower conscious choice-making are far more effective than forceful restrictions or shame-based interventions.
While tech giants compete to capture every second of our attention, these developers built the antidoteβproving that the most radical act of innovation might just be helping people look away.
β
