Axiata Digital Labs, Sri Lanka’s most innovative digital transformation enabler, announced the launch of its first-ever Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Analytics event, the ADL AI Summit.
This virtual, three-part event is geared toward those looking to grasp the fundamentals of AI, learn how to apply AI to real-world business problems, and hear directly from industry leaders in the field of AI.
The AI Summit will consist of the AI Workshop, the AI Hackathon and the AI Forum.
About the hackathon
The hackathon was AI/ML-based where 100+ International teams participated from 10 different countries. The event was sponsored by Amazon Web Services (Platinum Sponsor), Snowflake (gold sponsor), Dell Technologies (Silver sponsor), and Dialog (Enterprise Connectivity Partner).
The entire event was divided into two sections.
Pre-hackathon
During pre-hackathon, there were two sections for the competition. The first was to participate in Kaggle Competition which contained 70 per cent marks and the second one was to complete a scenario-based analytical quiz, which consisted of 30 per cent of the mark.
Teams were given a dataset consisting of customer data from a mobile telecommunications company. The Task was to develop an AI-based model to predict the rental plan each customer will activate in the following month.
A rental plan will be available for mobile customers as a monthly subscription, and it contains a free usage quota in terms of data, voice and text messages.
The top 30 teams were shortlisted based on the Kaggle and quiz results. There were three Bangladeshi teams in the top 30. After the declaration of the top 30, the main event started.
Main Hackathon
The main hackathon was a day-long hackathon, consisting of two phases. The first phase was a thematic technical phase. The theme was to create a digital twin, a virtual representation of a practical item.
For instance, one can virtually simulate a factory’s potential improvement before applying it in the real world using AI/ML and IoT devices. The entire technical phase was hosted in AWS with a fixed dataset provided by ADL.
The teams were asked to develop some Digital Twins based on the given datasets.
In the technical phase, the teams needed to find a problem, which is one of the categories of digital twins. Then, using the dataset and technology provided by ADL, the teams needed to solve the problem.
After the completion of the technical presentation, where the team needed to present a deck as well as the solution, the top 10 teams were shortlisted. There were three Bangladeshi teams in the top 10 as well.
Then the business presentation started with the top 10 teams. Each team was given 15 minutes to present the business presentation, where the business feasibility was demonstrated.
After the business presentation, the top 5 teams were announced; among them, two were Bangladeshi teams.
Later, based on the technical presentation, completion of the full end to end product and the business presentation, the top 3 were selected. The top two positions were grabbed by two Bangladeshi teams.
The prize-giving ceremony had Chris Howard, AI/ML Technical Leader, AWS, Dr Hans Wijayasuriya, CEO, Executive Vice President for the Axiata Group Berhad,
Asela Perera, VP of IT, Dialog Axiata PLC, Namal Jayathilake, VP of Engineering & Emerging Technology Axiata Labs, Professor Paul J. Morrissey, A Global Technology Entrepreneur and Ambassador at TM Forum for AI, ML, Thushera Kawadawatte, CEO of Axiata Digital Labs, Maria Lozano, Head of IoT and Big Data at Telefónica, Albert Nombress, Senior Practice Partner, Teradata Corporation, Vishal Upadhay, Ncell Axiata, Simom Samuel Head of Data Analytics, ADA, Kalyan Achyutuni, CIO, Smart Axiata.
Team Instinct consisted of Imran Ahmed, Nuren Shams, Ishfaq Zaman, Istiak Rahman, Nur Alam bagged the winning prize of USD 5000, sponsored by AWS.
Second runner ups team won USD 3000, sponsored by Dell Technologies,
One of the second runner up winners, Ifaz Ahmed Aflan, said, “Participating in such a competitive AI/ML-based hackathon was a life-changing moment. We had only one day to find a problem, figure out a solution, implement a solution, create a functional product using the AI/ML models, create a technical presentation, create a business presentation, prepare for technical presentation and QA, prepare for business presentation and QA.”
“I am confident the news of our footprint in the world of AI/ML will surely encourage a lot of enthusiasts,” he added.