After careful consideration during the 3rd round of the NIST PQC Standardization Process, NIST has identified 4 candidate algorithms for standardization, which are...
Well, wait. This has nothing to do with the challenge.
After revisiting the 10 Finalists of the NIST lightweight crypto standardization process, I think ASCON hashing algorithm is a bit too slow with 12 rounds of functions. Maybe changing to 2 rounds could make it WIN the competition?