‌✨‌ DAIS 2026 Community Virtual Contest – Winners Announced! 🏆

[Advika]

DAIS 2026 · Community Virtual Contest

The Winners
Are Here. 🏆

The votes are counted. The scores are locked. The final day of DAIS 2026 deserves a proper celebration.

A few weeks ago, we launched a challenge for our community — build something real on Databricks Free Edition and show the world what you've got. Community members stepped up, shipped their projects, and shared their work. If you missed the original contest post, you can check it out here ➚.

Meet the Judges Who Made It Happen 

Emma Stowell

@emma_s 

Stefan Bjelcevic

@stbjelcevic 

Mohan Mathews

@MoJaMa

Sean Ludera

@holysmokes

Anshu Roy

@anshu_roy 

Our judges are members of the Databricks Community Fellows program ➚ – we call them Fellows 😎. Each one comes from a different role, a different background, and a different corner of the Databricks ecosystem. And that's exactly what makes them the best people to judge this — they see it all, from every angle. 
Thank you all for making every participant feel seen and every submission feel valued. 💙

🏆 And the Winners Are...

Rank	Winner		Project 🔗	Score
1.		Jeffrey Lie-A-Sak @Jeffdenzel	Power BI – Unity Catalog Lineage Syncer ➚	42
2.		Vedanth V Baliga @vedanthv	Deal2Delivery – AI Sales Intelligence ➚	38
3.		William Zacarias @WiliamRosa	Governance RiskOps Agent for Unity Catalog ➚	36
4.		Pavankumar Suresh @Pavan_suresh	SupplyAgent – Point-in-Time Correctness ➚	34.5
5.		Daniil Tanampas @tanampas_	Retail Demand Forecasting ➚	34

The story behind the 5th spot

🎲 @tanampas_ (Retail Demand Forecasting) and @ashish51  (LEGO Value Engine) finished with identical scores  and identical post likes. A genuine dead heat.
We looped in one final judge, Will Valori @willdatabricks, Senior Product Manager, who broke the tie. One project was wildly creative. The other solved a real business problem beautifully. Daniil took the win – but Ashish, that was incredibly close. 👏

From Us to You 🙂

🎁 Winners – your swag is coming!

We'll be reaching out to you soon to grab your details and get it shipped your way.

💪 Didn't win this time?

You built something real and put it out there. That already sets you apart. Your next project will be even better.

📩 Watch your DMs!

We'll send you what the judges had to say about your project.

[Jeffdenzel]

What an incredible surprise to see pop up in my mail after a day of work! Tyvm to the judges for taking the time to review us all. There were some amazing projects in this lineup so it came very unexpected!

Building the Lineage Syncer was a fun experience, especially because it came from a real issue that I have had. It's awesome to see what Unity Catalog, with it's extenal lineage, can do to bridge the gaps to outside the databricks ecosystem. I'm looking forward to reading the feedback by the judges.😀

[ashish51]

Thank you to the judges for the review and the shoutout! Building the LEGO Value Engine was a ton of fun! Congratulations to everyone who placed, and it was great to see all the projects from the rest of the community!

[vedanthv]

Excited to see my project bag the second place!

Thank you judges for reviewing our projects.

This was an incredible experience leveraging the power of Databricks Free Edition to build real end to end case studies. A huge thank you to @Advika for organizing such an well-run contest, and to the entire  community here for the support throughout.

Congrats @Jeffdenzel for securing the top prize!

[MandyR]

A hearty congratulations to all winners, a huge thank you to all the participants and a big hug of appreciation to our Community Fellow judges! It's so inspiring to see so much pride and creativity in your Databricks creations using Free Edition. 

[WiliamRosa]

Honored to have my project recognized in the Databricks Community Contest.

This experience reinforced what I enjoy most: turning real-world challenges into practical Data & AI solutions while learning from an incredible community.

Thank you to the judges, organizers, and everyone who supported the participants throughout the contest.

[emma_s]

Congratulations to all the participants. I had so much fun judging, and it was great to see all the innovation and knowledge of the Databricks platform.  You definitely didn't make our job easy!

[Ashwin_DSA]

Congratulations to everyone! Great job on your hard work!

[Sumit_7]

Congratulations to all the winners. Thanks to the Databricks team for their effort and dedication in making this event so lively and exciting.
See yaa in the next cohort!