Live chat, richer project showcases, video thumbnails and smarter jury tooling — a quick tour of everything that landed on PENTAS heading into the 2026 season.
On this page
The 2026 season is in full swing, and PENTAS has grown a lot since last year. Here is a quick tour of the biggest changes organisers, jury members and participants will notice when they log in.
Live chat for every competition
Organisers can now open a live chat channel per competition. Participants and jury members see the chat directly inside their workspace, so questions about deadlines, rubrics or submission rules get answered where the work actually happens — no more hunting through email threads.
A richer public showcase
Finished projects now get a proper stage. Every published project page supports video presentations with custom thumbnails, likes and view analytics, and winners can be highlighted on the public showcase gallery for anyone to browse.
Video thumbnails that do the work for you
Upload any PNG or JPG and PENTAS crops it into a clean 16:9 frame automatically. Teams no longer need image-editing skills to make their submissions look sharp on gallery walls.
Smarter tooling behind the scenes
- Scoring-aware jury assignments — organisers can see at a glance which jury slots are complete, still pending, or past the judging window.
- Conflict of interest tracking — jury members declare conflicts up front, and blocked scores stay out of results until an organiser reviews them.
- Re-evaluation until the deadline — jury members can revise their scores any time before judging closes, with every change audited.
Every change ships with the same goal: less admin for organisers, clearer signals for jury members, and a better stage for participants.
What's next
The roadmap for the rest of the season focuses on analytics for organisers and even faster judging workflows. If you run innovation competitions at your institution and want a guided walkthrough, reach out through our contact page — we will show you around.
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