A team of undergraduate engineering students from UNSW Sydney has claimed first place at a prestigious international artificial heart design competition in Vienna.
The Mending Broken Hearts (MBH) team won the 2025 International Heart Hackathon Finals earlier this month, beating 13 teams from more than 10 countries.
The competition is the world’s first and only international Total Artificial Heart (TAH) design challenge for undergraduate students, bringing together some of the best emerging engineering talent from around the globe.
The Heart Hackathon challenges teams to design, prototype and present next-generation artificial heart technologies - devices that could one day save the lives of people with severe heart failure.
Cardiovascular disease remains a leading cause of death in Australia, affecting around one in nine Australians.
UNSW’s winning team was made up of 27 undergraduate students from mechanical, electrical, software and control engineering disciplines.
Over several months, the students collaborated to develop a novel total artificial heart concept based on a rotary undulation pump, re-imagining a design first explored two decades ago and applying modern engineering approaches to create a new solution.
Dr Audrey Adji, the academic lead of the team (research scientist at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute/St Vincent’s Hospital Applied Medical Research Centre and a conjoint senior lecturer at UNSW) said: “This achievement is the culmination of our team’s year-long commitment to designing and testing every facet of the total artificial heart prototype.”
Judges praised the UNSW team’s design for its innovation, feasibility and potential long-term impact on life-saving cardiac care. The win highlights the growing role of Australian students in shaping the future of biomedical engineering on the global stage.
Dr Bernard Kornfeld, Professor of Practice at UNSW Engineering said: "This success demonstrates UNSW’s commitment through the Vertically Integrated Projects program to producing graduates who can solve global challenges and deliver innovations with real-world social and economic value."
Australia was well represented at the finals in Vienna, with other local universities also recognised. Monash University received the Best Newcomer Team award, while Queensland University of Technology was named Best Challenge Statement Team.
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Neil Martin, News & Content Coordinator, UNSW Engineering
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