Last fall, a group of talented UT Dallas ECS students earned top honors at UT Austin’s HackTX 2024 with their innovative project, Angel’s Protection. The team—Le Duy Pham and Bryant Hargreaves (senior software engineering students), Dan Nguyen (a senior computer engineering student) and Sunay Shehaan (a computer science freshman attending his first hackathon)—secured three first place awards: “Best Use of Intel AI,” “Best Use of GenAI with InterSystems IRIS Vector Search,” and “Best Ground-Up Model.” Their prizes included laptops, $10,000 in cloud credits, and $2,400 in cash.

The Vision Behind Angel’s Protection

Designed to address the challenges of modern security, Angel’s Protection is a privacy-first system that enables users to locate individuals in real time using natural language queries. Unlike traditional systems relying on facial recognition, it identifies people based on clothing attributes, like color and sleeve length. This ensures privacy and adaptability, with applications ranging from campus security to public safety scenarios like crowd management and missing person searches.

The team utilized YOLOv11 for real-time human detection and a segmentation model to extract clothing features while maintaining privacy. These features were stored in a searchable database, allowing users to describe individuals in plain language. Powered by Intel’s AI Developer Cloud and Llama 3.2 for accuracy refinement, their solution bridges the gap between privacy and security.

Real-World Impact and Future Aspirations

Angel’s Protection offers a groundbreaking alternative to traditional security systems by focusing on ethical, privacy-conscious technology. “For my first hackathon, this was an incredible experience—I can’t wait to do it again!” Shehaan said.

Hargreaves added, “We’re excited to see how Angel’s Protection evolves beyond the hackathon and contributes to a safer world.”

With this project, the UT Dallas team has shown how innovation, teamwork, and ethical design can drive meaningful change in technology.