{"id":51516,"date":"2024-09-28T13:18:36","date_gmt":"2024-09-28T13:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/20-teams-battle-it-out-in-irembo-s-48-hour-inaugural-ai-connect-hackathon\/"},"modified":"2024-10-01T11:12:42","modified_gmt":"2024-10-01T11:12:42","slug":"20-teams-battle-it-out-in-irembo-s-48-hour-inaugural-ai-connect-hackathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/20-teams-battle-it-out-in-irembo-s-48-hour-inaugural-ai-connect-hackathon\/","title":{"rendered":"20 teams battle it out in Irembo\u2019s 48-hour inaugural AI Connect hackathon"},"content":{"rendered":"

The teams comprise 63 young software engineers from diverse backgrounds who will be working in groups of two to four, with strong determination to leave their mark in the ever-evolving world of technology.<\/p>\n

Speaking during the opening ceremony of the hackathon at the Irembo Campus in Nyarutarama, Peter Charles Djomga, Director of Software Engineering at Irembo, said the 48-hour competition aims to identify talent and create solutions that address real-world challenges and drive meaningful impact in society. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to increase the capability of having doers in the IT ecosystem\u2014not only people who can come and talk about AI, but people who can build things that have a real impact in the community,\u201d Djomga stated.<\/p>\n

\"Peter<\/figure>\n

Djomga noted that the 20 teams participating in the contest were selected from a pool of more than 130 teams who expressed interest in the competition.<\/p>\n

In under 48 hours, participants, hosted at two Irembo campuses, are expected to harness the power of artificial intelligence and build functional, AI-driven applications to create innovative solutions for public services, healthcare, education, customer service, agriculture, financial inclusion, and cybersecurity, among other fields.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

In developing practical AI solutions, the participants will leverage large language models (LLMs) and locally built technologies. Teams will also have the opportunity to access IremboPay APIs to integrate cutting-edge digital payment solutions into their projects. Pindo, a partner of the event, will provide access to its latest speech-to-text and text-to-speech AI models for voice-enabled applications.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/figure>\n

Coding for the project kicked off at 7:00 p.m. on Friday and is expected to close at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday when the participants will submit their projects. Thereafter, presentations of the solutions to a panel of distinguished judges will commence and conclude by 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, followed by the unveiling of the top innovators.<\/p>\n

According to the organizers, the judging criteria for the AI Connect Hackathon will focus on four key areas: <\/p>\n

First, impact \u2014judges will assess the project\u2019s long-term potential for growth and its ability to improve people\u2019s lives. Second, creativity \u2014the originality and innovation of the AI application will be evaluated. Third, technical implementation \u2014the quality of the technology\u2019s execution will be taken into account. Finally, presentation \u2014the team\u2019s final pitch will be judged on how compelling and clear it is.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

The winning team will receive a cash prize of RWF 5 million and VIP passes to the Global AI Summit on Africa in April 2025. Second- and third-place teams will receive RWF 2 million and RWF 1 million, respectively.<\/p>\n

Besides the cash rewards, all participants will benefit from invaluable exposure, networking opportunities, and potential internships with event sponsors like the Rwanda Social Security Board (RSSB).<\/p>\n

\"Besides<\/figure>\n

Patrick Rusimbi, a fourth-year Information Technology (IT) student at Adventist University Central Africa, expressed his excitement, stating that the facilities and resources provided by partners, including Groq API, will help him bring his long-harboured idea to life and possibly secure funding and other assistance to scale it up to have a worldwide impact. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have had my idea for the last six months. I have been yearning for an opportunity to bring it to life. When I saw this hackathon, I saw an opportunity to build something that no one has seen before,\u201d Rusimbi told IGIHE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The much-awaited AI Connect Hackathon, hosted by Irembo in partnership with the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR), kicked off on Friday, September 27, 2024, with 20 teams participating in the competition. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":2000075344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[75,146],"byline":[192],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-51516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-technology","tag-homenews","tag-mot-irembo","byline-wycliffe-nyamasege"],"bylines":[{"id":192,"name":"Wycliffe Nyamasege","slug":"wycliffe-nyamasege","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":131}],"contributors":[{"id":192,"name":"Wycliffe Nyamasege","slug":"wycliffe-nyamasege","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":131}],"featured_image":{"id":2000075344,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/dsc06521.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/dsc06521.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/dsc06521.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/dsc06521.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/dsc06521.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/dsc06521.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000075344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51516"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=51516"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=51516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}