Epoch

Every year, Epoch is completely renewed. A new team inherits the competitive framework, the partnerships, and the AI Cup — and takes it further. That continuity is what separates Epoch from a student project.

This year, Epoch VI finished 2nd out of 430 teams in the Gates Foundation’s international Children’s Speech Recognition challenge, and won 1st place at ETH Zurich’s Datathon. We launched AI Cup (2026) – the largest student AI competition in the Netherlands – bringing together 500+ participants from 7+ universities to solve a real biodiversity challenge in partnership with TNO. We also built an agentic AI policy simulator for the Dutch Government. And we’re heading to South Africa to develop computer vision systems to protect wildlife against poachers.

We also handed the next generation something we didn’t have when we started: a multi-year strategy, a competitive framework, and a clear direction.