The English School is pleased to congratulate Year 5 student Maximos Rigas Psaltis on his selection as a member of Team Ctrl + Alt + Dialogue, one of only 20 teams chosen across the Council of Europe’s 46 member states to compete in the grand final of the Democracy Hackathon, “Hack the Hate, Renew Democracy”.
Maximos will be at the Palais de l’ Europe in Strasbourg from 17 to 19 June 2026, where the four-member team will present “Civic Bridge AI”; an artificial intelligence application that detects hate speech on social media, evaluates its severity anonymously and proposes targeted educational interventions grounded in Council of Europe conventions and frameworks from social and developmental psychology.
As the team’s youngest member at 17 years old, Maximos contributed the authentic student perspective, helping to shape the application’s design so that it meets the real needs of adolescent users. His involvement reflects the interdisciplinary spirit of the project, which brings together expertise in psychology, computer science, education and audiovisual communication from a team of researchers and practitioners affiliated with the University of Cyprus and other institutions.
The Hackathon final coincides with the Council of Europe’s “No Hate Speech Week” and will conclude with a speech by Secretary General Alain Berset. Winning teams will receive funding, mentoring and implementation support to bring their solutions to a pan-European scale.
The English School warmly congratulates Maximos on this achievement and wishes the entire Ctrl + Alt + Dialogue team every success in Strasbourg.
For more information: Council of Europe Democracy Hackathon
