MESA Students Claim Top Honor at HackMESA 2.0 with AI Privacy Tool

Three students from Moreno Valley College's Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) program earned the Most Innovative Tech award at HackMESA 2.0, a collegiate hackathon, for developing CensorIt, a real-time AI tool designed to automatically detect and blur license plates during live video streams.

Felipe Reyes Sagastume, Alejandro Calero, and Emily Alley created CensorIt in response to a challenge content creators frequently face: the unintentional exposure of personally identifiable information during live outdoor broadcasts. The plug-in integrates directly with OBS, a widely used streaming platform, processing each video frame before it reaches viewers, detecting license plates, and applying real-time blurring.

Built using C++, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, the tool addresses a gap at the intersection of digital privacy and live content production. The team navigated several challenges, including learning new programming languages, selecting an appropriate AI model, and configuring the software to operate across multiple platforms.

HackMESA 2.0 drew competitors across four tracks and recognized 16 winners, including awards in Best Beginner Hack, Best Technical Implementation and Best UI/UX. The event was hosted by MESA and brought together community college students to design and build original technology projects within a competitive timeframe.

The MVC MESA delegation also toured the University of Southern California campus, guided by the Director of the USC Viterbi K-12 STEM Center, Darin Gray, Ed.D. The visit complemented the weekend's technical challenges by offering students direct exposure to a four-year university environment and strengthening connections between the community college pathway and transfer institutions.

The team envisions future iterations of CensorIt expanding beyond license plate detection to include face and phone number blurring, along with a built-in AI moderation agent and broader privacy controls. With HackMESA 3.0 planned for 2027, MVC MESA intends to apply what students gained from this competition to continued programming development.