THEBEHAPPYFISH: An EELISA international activity

Resumen

TheBeHappyFish is an international challenge, a hackathon-like event, in the framework of the European Engineering Learning Innovation and Science Alliance (EELISA), more precisely within the community entitled Sustainable Food Production (SFP). TheBeHappyFish has been designed by Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) and coordinated with ITU (Turkish Technical University), and ZHAW (Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften) in a hybrid format. It allows participants to join either in person, online, or through a combination of both, providing the opportunity to develop cutting-edge solutions using artificial intelligence, computer vision, and satellite data analysis, while fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange. In this graduate-postgraduate challenge, 31 students of 8 nationalities were prone to propose innovative ideas towards the improvement of fish welfare under fish farming in one of these categories: a) Develop AI-powered Tools for Fish Counting, Disease Recognition, and Behavior Analysis; b) Water Quality Monitoring Through Satellite Observation; c) Designing Sustainable Systems; and d) Free Contribution Ideas. Participants were grouped into teams of 3 to 5 membersA webinar was held 15 days in advance of the challenge itself (15th January), which consisted of a series of expert-led webinars, with recordings later made available on YouTube. The BeHappyFish event (30-31 January) was structured into two different phases: Day 1, ideation, development, and complementary expert talks; and Day 2, refinement, final presentations, networking, and awards ceremony. As a result, most participants rated the event positively, with many appreciating the opportunity to collaborate on real-world challengesStudents reporting on the activities also highlighted various learning tips, including aquaculture industry insights, sustainability practices, and AI applications. The support from mentors and organizers received mostly positive ratings, but a few students felt that expert talks could have been more aligned with the technical challenges. Some students suggested that the mentoring process could be more structured, with clearer guidance on project development and problem-solving. Many participants expressed interest in joining again but suggested improvements, such as more interactive sessions between researchers and students, better datasets, and a clearer focus on coding and AI for those. In principle, TheBeHappyFish may be repeated with another of the university partners as the host institution: ITU or ZHAW.