{"id":6189,"date":"2026-03-20T15:36:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T19:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/?p=6189"},"modified":"2026-03-23T10:28:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T14:28:37","slug":"ross-it-takes-top-honors-at-hacks-with-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/2026\/03\/20\/ross-it-takes-top-honors-at-hacks-with-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Ross IT Takes Top Honors at Hacks With Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-image kb-image6189_31405c-06\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2026\/03\/2026hwf-team-7-web-2-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Don DuChateau, Sheetal Sonar, and their team hold a sign that says &quot;The Legacy Loop: AI-Powered Legacy System&quot;\" class=\"kb-img wp-image-6193\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2026\/03\/2026hwf-team-7-web-2-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2026\/03\/2026hwf-team-7-web-2-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2026\/03\/2026hwf-team-7-web-2-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2026\/03\/2026hwf-team-7-web-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2026\/03\/2026hwf-team-7-web-2.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>A team led by members of our Michigan Ross IT community recently earned first place and the People\u2019s Choice Award at the MTech <a href=\"https:\/\/it.umich.edu\/community\/hacks-with-friends\/2026\">2026 Hacks With Friends<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don DuChateau, Sheetal Sonar, and their team won for their hack, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/it.umich.edu\/community\/hacks-with-friends\/2026\/submitted-pitches#pitch7\">The Legacy Loop: AI-Powered Legacy System<\/a>.\u201d The concept addresses a familiar challenge across teams: how to preserve institutional knowledge when someone leaves a role. Their tool uses an AI chatbot to guide a departing employee through a structured exit process \u2014 including interviews, documentation, and videos \u2014 capturing key context and practical information that can be handed off to the next person who fills the position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hacks with Friends is a hackathon-style event where members of the U\u2011M IT community team up to build and demo new ideas that address common IT or business education challenges. This year\u2019s event was held March 5-6 at Michigan Ross. Congratulations to Don and Sheetal!<\/p>\n<style class=\"advgb-styles-renderer\">.kb-image6189_31405c-06.kb-image-is-ratio-size, .kb-image6189_31405c-06 .kb-image-is-ratio-size{max-width:430px;width:100%;}.wp-block-kadence-column > .kt-inside-inner-col > .kb-image6189_31405c-06.kb-image-is-ratio-size, .wp-block-kadence-column > .kt-inside-inner-col > .kb-image6189_31405c-06 .kb-image-is-ratio-size{align-self:unset;}.kb-image6189_31405c-06 figure{max-width:430px;}.kb-image6189_31405c-06 .image-is-svg, .kb-image6189_31405c-06 .image-is-svg img{width:100%;}.kb-image6189_31405c-06 .kb-image-has-overlay:after{opacity:0.3;}@media all and (max-width: 767px){.wp-block-kadence-image.kb-image6189_31405c-06:not(.kb-specificity-added):not(.kb-extra-specificity-added) > figure{margin-right:var(--global-kb-spacing-sm, 1.5rem);}}<\/style>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A team led by members of our Michigan Ross IT community recently earned first place and the People\u2019s Choice Award at the MTech 2026 Hacks With Friends.&nbsp; Don DuChateau, Sheetal Sonar, and their team won for their hack, \u201cThe Legacy Loop: AI-Powered Legacy System.\u201d The concept addresses a familiar challenge across teams: how to preserve&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4802,"featured_media":6192,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"ep_post_type":[24],"class_list":["post-6189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-staff","ep_post_type-post"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"Nicholle Cardinal","author_meta":{"display_name":"Nicholle Cardinal","author_link":"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/author\/ndcard\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2026\/03\/pitch7_2026hwf-winning-team-web-2-300x200.jpg","taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":17,"label":"Staff News"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2026\/03\/pitch7_2026hwf-winning-team-web-2-1024x683.jpg",1024,683,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Nicholle Cardinal","author_link":"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/author\/ndcard\/"},"comment_info":"","category_info":[{"term_id":17,"name":"Staff News","slug":"staff","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":17,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":192,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":17,"category_count":192,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Staff News","category_nicename":"staff","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/category\/staff\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Staff News<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Staff News<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 2 weeks ago","modified":"Updated 2 weeks ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on March 20, 2026","modified":"Updated on March 23, 2026"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on March 20, 2026 3:36 pm","modified":"Updated on March 23, 2026 10:28 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4802"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6194,"href":"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6189\/revisions\/6194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6189"},{"taxonomy":"ep_post_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rossweb.bus.umich.edu\/faculty-staff-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ep_post_type?post=6189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}