Hackathon team members awarded by the US Embassy
Published:Wednesday | October 27, 2021 | 12:24 AMAsha Wilks/Gleaner Writer
On October 15, the top six teams from the junior and senior categories who matriculated into the final round of the inaugural JamaA.I.ca Codefest Hackathon, hosted by the US Embassy in Jamaica, were awarded.
A hackathon is an event in which computer programmers work collaboratively and intensively with one another, in a relatively short period of time, to create code for a new software product or service.
The three-day event, which was held in collaboration with STEAM House Network, a social enterprise and education hub that uses integrated project-based approaches to bring concepts of science, technology, and engineering to life, included coding workshops, breakout sessions, and presentations made by the various teams.
These presentations, along with the technology developed, were taken into account by the judges, who named Origin Coders of Ardenne High School as the junior category winners and Techtators of Hillel Academy as the senior category winners.
JTD, a group of graduates from The University of the West Indies, took second place, and Techbots, fellow schoolmates and rivals, Techtators, came in third.
Origin Coders went up against Tech Achievers, a group of youngsters with an interest in technology who took second place, and the sibling group, Blazing Baileys, who came in third.
First-place teams were awarded with Dell laptops, award plaques, and a cash prize of $100,000, which will be split between the two top teams and was donated by finalist judge and CEO of StarApple AI, Adrian Dunkley.
The event provided an opportunity for teams to be challenged over the course of several weeks to develop innovative solutions to community challenges using artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques.
POTENTIAL IMPACT
Origin Coders sought to tackle the persistent, and increasing levels of carbon dioxide, which has been a leading cause of both global warming and climate change. With many scientists worldwide concerned for the future of planet Earth, Orgin Coders sought to use a Kaggle data set with carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, dating back to 1958, to be able to predict future CO2 levels and raise awareness on the potential impact of CO2 levels in the future.
Kaggle tests enable users to discover and share data sets, explore and build models in a web-based data science environment to solve data science challenges.
Techtators, a group described as ‘tech geeks’ who enjoy learning about coding and are heavily involved with programming in Python - a high-level programming language - sought to increase the conversation around, and bring awareness to, menstrual hygiene and sexual health education.
This was accomplished by creating Trixie, a free open-source chatbot designed to analyse questions and provide accurate, well-researched, informed responses to its users.
Other remarkable mentions include JTD’s group, which came in second place in the senior category and built what they named as the gunD AI model. This addressed the issue of gun violence in the community. The weapon-detection system was created with the intention of detecting gun images in video surveillance in locations, including airports and schools.
The first runner-up in the junior category, Tech Achievers, aimed to address the issue of children being exposed to inappropriate and possibly harmful media content such as music. They established an online database that uses machine learning to identify music lyrics. This is done as the lyrics of a song, together with its title and artiste’s name, are run through a machine learning model, which subsequently classifies the song as child-friendly or not.
In his address to the finalists, Bobby Adelson, public affairs officer at the US Embassy in Kingston, emphasised that this first-ever AI hackathon and additional initiatives of this nature allow the US and Jamaica to create and retain great talent pipelines between the two countries. “It is no accident that the Jamaican diaspora in the US is just shy of over a million persons,” he added.
Adelson went on to say that he wants Jamaica to be the leader in technological advancement in the Caribbean, citing Jamaica’s remarkable track record of rising above challenges and exceeding expectations while positively contributing to the country’s economic, social, and cultural landscapes.
“Continue striving for excellence, relentlessly pursue your digital literacy skills, and let us continue building our talent pipelines in order to advance our global society,” he implored the students.