#HackSussex Coders Cup 2026 | Global audience tunes in as University of Sussex coders battle for top prize
Fans from all over the world tuned in to watch students battling it out to be crowned the best University of Sussex coder on Friday.
The popular #HackSussex Coders Cup is a unique event, pitting students from the University of Sussex against each other to show who can code the quickest and most efficiently. Coding is the process of writing in programming languages to tell computers and electronic devices how to perform specific tasks.
Only students from the university can enter, but the live-streamed event is growing in popularity, with over 4,000 viewers from as far afield as India and the US following the latest competition online.
This year, seven students reached the knockout stage, held in a secret location on campus. After a nail-biting final, Jake Morgan beat runner-up Gibson Horne to win a 3D printer and a DJI drone. Both finalists are first-year students and attend the weekly #HackSussex coding workshop at the university.
Run by the #HackSussex society for six years now, competitors are given a series of coding tests, with whoever solves them first winning each round. Audiences watch the screens of each competitor while commentary is provided by members of the society.
“This is becoming more and more popular,” said Charlotte Richardson, President of #HackSussex. “We know people love to watch and it gets increasingly tense as the competition goes on. It is a huge event for the university as it showcases some of the excellent skills you can learn here. We even had one student tell us they came to Sussex because of the Coders Cup.”
The event is sponsored by Eastbourne-based software company Switchplane, the British Computing Society, game engine Unity and the University of Sussex Informatics Department, which help fund the event and provide prizes.
It was livestreamed by the Media Technologies Lab at the University of Sussex. This year’s presenters were University of Sussex students Lukas Hastings, Richerd (corr) Joseph and Zainob Adegbite.
To watch the event as it happened visit the #HackSussex Youtube channel.
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