KTH student wins first prize in international space and defence hackathon

The Signal Vector team wins first prize at SpaceShield Hack 2026 — The Signal Vector team receives first prize at SpaceShield Hack 2026

Published Jun 11, 2026

How can technology help cities prepare for crises and protect important infrastructure? That was the challenge KTH student Kacper Lisik and his team won first prize for at one of Central and Eastern Europe’s major hackathons within space, defence and cybersecurity.

Kacper Lisik, a third-year student in the bachelor's programme Information and Communication Technology at KTH, was part of the team that won first place in the Defence category at SpaceShield Hack 2026 in Stalowa Wola, Poland.

SpaceShield is one of the largest hackathons in Central and Eastern Europe focused on space, defence, cybersecurity and dual-use technology. Around 300 participants took part in the competition, during which teams had 24 hours to develop solutions to real-world challenges.

Lisik’s team developed Signal Vector, a system that can help cities understand what might happen during a crisis — for example, if roads, hospitals, energy systems or other important parts of society are affected.

”For this hackathon, we tried a different approach. We decided to spend most of our time planning and designing the product instead of jumping straight into implementation, and I think it was a great decision that really paid off,” Lisik says.

The idea is to give decision-makers a clearer picture of a crisis as it unfolds and to help them understand how one disruption could have consequences elsewhere.

“Signal Vector started as a hackathon project, but the problem it addresses is highly relevant: how cities and decision-makers can better understand risks, dependencies and consequences in crisis situations,” says Lisik.

A digital model of a city

More technically, Signal Vector is based on a digital twin of a city — a digital model that represents real infrastructure and systems. The solution integrates data from multiple sources and uses AI models to support analysis, prediction and decision-making in crisis scenarios.

By analysing dependencies between different parts of urban infrastructure, the system can help assess how an incident in one area could affect other critical functions. For example, a disruption in the energy supply could affect hospitals, transport systems, communication networks, or emergency services.

The system is also designed to gather and interpret information from sources such as monitoring systems and social media, enabling faster identification of emerging threats.

The team consisted of Kacper Lisik, Aiman Ghanim, Maksymilian Paczyński and Jakub Ptaszkiewicz. They received prizes totalling approximately USD 8,000.

For Lisik, the result shows how knowledge from KTH can be applied to complex societal challenges where technology, security and resilience meet.

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