# BenefitFinder wins at CruzHacks

Surya Pugazhenthi competed at CruzHacks 2025 (Apr 2025) as a full-stack builder, shipping BenefitFinder. Result: Best Beginner Hack; featured by Santa Cruz Works as 1 of 5 winning projects with startup potential.

- **Organization:** CruzHacks 2025
- **Role:** Full-stack builder
- **Dates:** Apr 2025
- **Result:** Best Beginner Hack; featured by Santa Cruz Works as 1 of 5 winning projects with startup potential
- **Career period:** Season 2, UC Santa Cruz (2024 – 2026)

## Context

Students eligible for federal, state, and nonprofit aid routinely never find it — eligibility rules are scattered across dozens of programs.

## What Surya did

- Built an MVP in 36 hours matching students to aid programs across 20+ eligibility criteria.
- Implemented the matching engine with Vite + React, Firebase auth and real-time DB, and Gemini AI for semantic search across aid programs.

## Outcome

Won Best Beginner Hack and got featured at Santa Cruz Works' 2025 Summer Rooftop Mixer as one of five hackathon projects with startup potential — the first race win.

Source page: https://suryapugaz.com/career/benefitfinder-cruzhacks