A team of undergraduate students from PeraCom, the Department of Computer Engineering, University of Peradeniya, secured Second Place in the Agentic AI category at NexusHacks 2026, organized by Phaser, India.

NexusHacks 2026 brought together talented student innovators to develop and present technology-driven solutions across the Agentic AI and Embedded AI categories. Following 48 intense hours of building, debugging, redesigning, and refining their solution, Team Kestrel was recognized among the leading projects of the competition. The team was also ranked 4th among the Top 10 projects across both the Agentic AI and Embedded AI categories.

Representing the University of Peradeniya, Team Kestrel secured Second Place in the Agentic AI category with their project, Kestrel, a personalized AI tutor and digital workspace designed to transform textbooks and handwritten notes into structured study guides and animated video lessons. The platform integrates a multi-agent LangGraph pipeline with targeted Retrieval- Augmented Generation (RAG), handwriting recognition, autonomous video generation, custom Manim animations, knowledge graphs, and an infinite spatial workspace.

The competition featured a distinguished panel of industry professionals and leaders from globally recognized organizations, including Amazon, Intuit, Applied Intuition, Comcast, Samsung, Cognizant, and Moody’s. Recognition from such a strong judging panel further highlights the technical depth and innovative nature of the team's solution.

The team comprised Rashad Shamil and Dakshayani Ramanesh from the Department of Computer Engineering, and Thilac Ramesh from the Department of Mechanical Engineering. All three are undergraduate students at the University of Peradeniya, representing the Faculty of Engineering.

This outstanding achievement demonstrates the team's creativity, technical expertise, collaborative spirit, and ability to develop innovative solutions using emerging artificial intelligence technologies. By combining multiple AI techniques into a practical and personalized learning platform, the team showcased their ability to address real-world challenges through intelligent automation.

Congratulations to Team Kestrel on this remarkable achievement and for bringing pride and recognition to the Department of Computer Engineering and University of Peradeniya.

Written By: Hirushi Adikari (Editor/Association of Computer Engineering Students)