On one intense weekend in Bogota, a group of students from the Escuela Colombiana de Ingenieria Julio Garavito turned their love of space and code into a winning project at the NASA International Space Apps Challenge 2025.
Their team, called ECI Centuri, created an artificial intelligence tool that helps detect exoplanets (a planet that orbits a star other than our Sun) using real NASA data, taking first place at the Bogota local event and earning a spot on the global stage.
Nasa space apps, a global space weekend
NASA International Space Apps Challenge is a massive global hackathon that invites people worldwide to solve real challenges using open data from NASA and partner space agencies.
The 2025 edition took place on Oct. 4 and 5, with local events in more than 160 countries and regions, including a lively site in Bogota.
Participants did not need to be professional scientists; the event welcomed students, developers, designers, storytellers, and anyone curious about space, data, and creative problem solving.
For one weekend, every local site turned into a space lab where teams mixed coding, design, and science communication to build prototypes that could help explore Earth, the Moon, Mars, and distant worlds.
ECI Centuri shines in Bogota
In Bogota, the ECI Centuri team from the Escuela Colombiana de Ingenieria Julio Garavito captured the spotlight by winning the local edition of NASA Space Apps 2025.
The team brought together students from several programs, including systems engineering, statistics, mathematics, and electronic engineering, creating a multidisciplinary mix that proved perfect for a complex data science challenge.
They worked under the guidance of professor Wilmer Garzon Alfonso, director of the Data Science master’s program, who had already led a winning team from the same university in the 2024 Space Apps Chia event.
That combination of experience, mentoring, and fresh enthusiasm helped the students stay focused during the two-day sprint, moving quickly from idea to working prototype while still keeping the project clear for nonexperts.
An AI exoplanet hunter built in two days
ECI Centuri chose the challenge “A World Away: Hunting for Exoplanets with AI,” which asked teams to use machine learning to detect planets around other stars in public exoplanet datasets.
Exoplanet searches often rely on light curves, measurements of how a star’s brightness changes over time when a possible planet passes in front of it and creates a tiny, regular dip in light.
The students designed a model that learned to classify those light curves and highlight promising exoplanet candidates, helping scientists and students filter huge datasets faster and with more confidence.
Their solution, called “Exoplanet Hunter AI,” did not stop at code; the team also focused on a friendly interface and clear explanations so people outside data science could understand what the model was doing.
Why this win matters for Colombia
The victory at NASA Space Apps Bogota showed that Colombian universities can compete in cutting-edge areas such as AI, astrophysics, and data science using the same open tools as teams from larger research centers.
For the students, it was much more than a weekend project; it became a strong portfolio piece that proves they can work in teams, handle complex data, and pitch technical ideas to an international jury.
For Colombia’s STEM ecosystem, the story of ECI Centuri sends a powerful signal to younger students who might think space careers are out of reach; with open data, mentors, and curiosity, they can join global conversations.
Local institutions and communities also celebrated the team, from the university to regional authorities, reinforcing the idea that science and technology achievements deserve the same attention as sports or entertainment.
ECI Centuri’s AI exoplanet hunter did more than win first place at NASA International Space Apps Challenge 2025 Bogota; it showed how far a small group of motivated students can go in just one weekend.
Their success proves that Colombian talent can help search for new worlds, one dataset at a time, and invites other students to join future editions of NASA Space Apps with fresh ideas and bold questions.
