Manchester Met Students Crowned Global Winners at GRAILS 2026 AI Competition

Four Manchester Metropolitan University students have been named Grand Winners at GRAILS 2026, an annual competition inviting student teams to become pioneers in defining and advancing the ethical use of AI, held this year at IBA Erhvervsakademi Kolding in Denmark.

Verona Charles, Lucy Stubbs, Dorcas Durodola and Martin Capone beat eight international teams from England, Belgium, Croatia, the Netherlands, Hungary and Romania to take the top prize. It is the first time a Manchester Met team has won a face-to-face international competition delivered through a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP).

The team’s winning project, SkinSight, is a responsible AI tool designed to improve access to skin health support through ethical and accessible technology.

Rather than stopping at the concept stage, the students built a working prototype using open-source image databases and an offline-trained model, reaching an accuracy level of 69 per cent. The design focused on accessibility, privacy and ethical principles, addressing the questions at the heart of GRAILS: who benefits from AI, who might be excluded, what data is being used, what assumptions are hidden inside models, and how systems can be made transparent, fair, accountable, secure and sustainable.

The BIP format combines short-term international mobility with compulsory virtual collaboration before students travel. During the competition, students from different countries are placed in mixed teams, share tasks online and then come together in person to deliver their final projects. This blend of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) and physical exchange has become one of the defining models of contemporary international higher education, enabling students to develop intercultural teamwork, communication and problem-solving skills while tackling real-world challenges.

The Manchester Met team was officially coached by Chiranjeewa Atapattu, Faculty COIL Lead, with industrial mentoring from Andy Su, System Data and AI Lead at Everbright Hotels.

Through its GoGlobal theme, Manchester Met is increasingly recognised as a leading UK institution in this space, with an active COIL programme reaching hundreds of students each year and a strong track record in international case competitions across Europe, North America and the Middle East.

GRAILS is an initiative of the AI and Ethics programme at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, moving to Denmark this year after two successful editions in Rotterdam. The competition challenges students to develop AI solutions that demonstrate technical innovation while embedding ethical thinking, responsibility and social impact. Eight international teams competed in the 2026 edition, with Manchester Met taking home the overall Grand Winner title.