Welcome, TrailRadar team! CASSINI Hackathon Winners in Finland

The annual CASSINI Hackathon aims to promote the use of space technologies to address pressing commercial, social, and environmental challenges. For the latest hackathon, the theme was “EU Space for Consumer Experience” and was divided into three challenges to choose from. The challenges focused on immersive game development, sports, and travel, and are based on using satellite data.

The 10th CASSINI Hackathon took place simultaneously across 10 different locations on 7-9 November 2025, and the TraiRadar team won in Finland. As part of their prize, the team has gained access to Aalto Startup Center's premises and will be part of our community for the next few months. ESA Phi-Lab Finland project manager Miika Kostamo joined the competition as a mentor.

"This was the second time I took part into CASSINI hackathon as mentor and based on the experience it has been very enlightening. There are always new ideas on how to utilise geospatial tools and technologies to these challenges and also very talented teams involved. For the future, I am also waiting to see these solutions mature and develop further, which is also the reason we are letting the local winner continue developing the idea in our coworking space in Aalto Startup Center," comments Kostamo.

To learn more about TrailRadar, read our five-question interview below.

1) Please tell us your names, roles, background, and the name of your team.

The TrailRadar's members are Pranish Kumar Munnangi, Saad Zia, Leo Niemi, and Erik Gelcich.

Pranish is looking into the market research and business model development, Studying Masters in Data Science and entrepreneurship. Saad contributed to the pitch development and helped improve the app's efficiency and technical optimization. He's finishing his bachelor's at Aalto in computational engineering.

Leo, lead programmer. His role during the hackathon was to develop the prototype app. He’s studying geoinformatics at the University of Helsinki and working part-time at the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute. Erik, a frontend developer and designer, is responsible for the user experience and interface design of the app, ensuring it is both intuitive and engaging. Currently, he is pursuing a major in Human-Computer Interaction and a minor in Entrepreneurship.

2) Which challenge did you choose and how did you solve it?

Among the 3 challenges, we decided to choose the 2nd challenge, "Space Powered Performance Transforming Sports". Our main idea was to add more engagement and improve the user experience during multi day trails and races. We wanted to connect athletes and audiences in an immersive way and our solution aimed to track a racer's position in the race and use augmented reality features to make the races more interactive.

3) What was your experience at the 10th CASSINI Hackathon like?

We enjoyed the fast-paced and loved how we had to brainstorm an ingenious idea, come up with a viable business plan, and produce a product demo in only 72 hours. We also enjoyed the competitive atmosphere and the opportunity to interact with people from vastly different backgrounds in order to gain fresh new perspectives. This was especially true for the various mentors who gave us advice born from their years of experience.

Furthermore, the hackathon allowed us the luxury to solely focus on our work and not have to worry about food or other amenities.

4) What do you expect from your time at the Aalto Startup Center?

We are excited to join the Aalto Startup Center and we are focusing on refining our idea and shaping our business model into something more solid and practical. During this time, we want to stay highly productive and make full use of the resources, guidance, and facilities provided by the startup center. At the same time, we are looking forward to being part of the Aalto Startup Center community by socializing, networking, and learning from other teams and founders. We see this experience as a valuable opportunity to gain feedback, improve our execution, and take meaningful steps toward building a viable startup.

5) What are you planning next?

We first want to dive even deeper into the market by conducting more research. We then plan to first turn our prototype into a functional MVP to begin field testing as soon as possible.

• More about ESA Phi-Lab Finland: esaphilab.fi
• More about CASSINI Hackathon: cassini.eu/hackathons
• More about Aalto Startup Center: startupcenter.aalto.fi