UPS students Ivan Yuquilima and Paul Quito who major in computer engineering and Ricardo Prieto and Flavio Trelles who major in electronic engineering in university's branch in Cuenca won first place in the 2016 Hackathon Competition, which was held in the university's Coworking offices on the 10th and 11th June and organized by the computer engineering faculty, the university's students federation (FEUPS) and the Cloud Computing, Smart Cities & High Performance Computing Research Group (GIHP4C).

Representatives from Universidad del Azuay, Universidad de Cuenca, Universidad Católica de Cuenca and Universidad Politecnica Salesiana's three branches took part in the event. 
The winners presented a project titled "Universal"; a project for people with different types of disabilities whose aim is to provide several services such as home safety and control.

Additionally, it is easy to access thanks to a mobile application which allows people to control the entire security systems of their house through an interface designed to be operated and controlled with ease by people with disabilities. 

Eduardo Gallegos, Franklin Lara, Cristhian Hernández and Víctor Guillermo, students from Universidad de Cuenca, came in second and David Mejía, Paúl Ávila, William Villa and Marco Banegas from Universidad del Azuay came in third.

The director of the computer engineering faculty Betha Tacuri said the aim of the competition was to get students together and have them share their knowledge and skills with others. It gives students the opportunity to create intelligent solutions based on technologies for social problems.