After Cisco Webex software engineer Oleksii Bondar completed his judging duties at the online HackForMental 2025 hackathon, coordinated from London last month, his assessment of twenty-plus prototypes left a clear impression: successful digital-wellness tools must work with human psychology, not against it. Bondar’s focus on behavioural nuance, honed while building real-time communication platforms, is now influencing how product teams approach screen-time reduction and workplace well-being.
“Digital wellness starts when technology respects the natural rhythms of its users,” Bondar notes.
From Judge to Industry Voice
Bondar served on a five-member judging panel at the 72-hour online challenge “Harmonic Disruption” (link), coordinated from London.
His fellow judges included Nisarg B. Shah (Product Manager, Meta), Sridhar Korimilli (AI/Data leader, formerly Oracle & Dell), and Mohit Jha (Privacy Infrastructure Engineer, ex-Google). The hackathon asked developers to create interventions that mitigate digital addiction without heavy-handed blocks. Stand-out entries included:
- Perspective Pivot – a Next.js/TypeScript browser extension that, after twenty minutes on a social platform, replaces endless scrolling with five curated posts followed by a reflective prompt
- Morning Redirect – a Node.js desktop agent that gently routes users toward goal-oriented tasks during their first device unlock of the day
- Work-Rhythm Enhancer – a TypeScript service that analyses keyboard and mouse patterns, suggesting micro-breaks when focus wanes
All evaluations were conducted via live video demos and real-time repository reviews, underscoring the event’s fully virtual character. Bondar scored each prototype on architecture, scalability and evidence-based design, ultimately awarding top honours to projects combining solid code with subtle behavioural cues.
Technical Innovation Meets Psychology
Bondar’s dual fluency in software engineering and user-behaviour research traces back to his five-year trajectory from freelance full-stack developer to senior engineer at Cisco.
During his freelance years, he built secure, high-performance web applications with React.js and Node.js for European e-commerce and fintech clients, sharpening his focus on authentication and speed. Today, he applies the same rigour to WebRTC features inside Webex, where millisecond timing dictates user experience.
Enterprise Lens on Consumer Ideas
During the hackathon, Bondar repeatedly challenged teams to consider enterprise applications. His recent collaboration with a multinational convenience-retail group demonstrated how consumer-oriented nudges translate into productivity tools for frontline staff. “Tools that encourage healthier digital habits scale naturally inside the workplace,” he says.
Standards First, Features Second
Throughout the challenge, projects built with well-typed TypeScript back ends and rigorously tested Node.js services scored highest. “Sound architecture outlasts fashionable features,” Bondar remarks, citing teams that logged results rather than relying solely on front-end heuristics.
His own contributions at Cisco follow similar principles: explicit type safety, modular design and readiness for machine-learning add-ons when data volume justifies the complexity.
Real-Time Expertise
Bondar’s WebRTC background informed his feedback to contestants attempting live-behaviour analysis. Timing interventions to avoid user frustration, he says, is as critical as predictive accuracy. “An alert delivered a fraction too late feels nagging; delivered a fraction too early, it feels irrelevant.”
Looking Ahead
Oleksii Bondar is exploring machine-learning techniques for detecting early signs of employee fatigue in corporate chat systems. His goal is to publish an open-source toolkit that lets product teams embed well-being checkpoints into everyday workflows.
A Growing Mandate
As screen-time legislation gains traction in several European parliaments, demand for evidence-based wellness tooling is set to rise. Bondar believes engineers must lead that conversation. “Regulation will set the floor, but thoughtful design will raise the ceiling,” he concludes.
