The "hack" will consist of unlocking the device so that you can flash unofficial software to it, then either finding a new version that someone else has built for the device or building it yourself.
The normal way this is done is by installing a custom version of the recovery module that will allow you to flash unsigned software (which can be done after unlocking the bootloader). However, the custom recovery must be built for your particular model: trying to flash a recovery built for a different device is an effective way of reducing it to a paperweight.
Then you need to find, or build yourself, a more recent version of Android. Again, this has to be built for your particular model, there is no generic build you can use and software built for a different model won't work. If someone hasn't done it already this is a major undertaking unless you are experienced at this sort of thing. And jumping from 4.4 to 9 is more likely to encounter problems with incompatible hardware drivers than a more modest step (say to 5.0).
So I think the short answer is, as Danny has posted while I was typing this, it's not likely. You could look around somewhere like XDA-developers and see whether any development work was done for this device, but I'd be inclined to follow his suggestion and see whether cleaning it up will help. To be honest a device built for Android 4 is not likely to run better with Android 8 or 9 even if you could install it.
