Experience Ventures - Hackathons
Categories
Information technology UI design UX design Community engagement Environmental sustainabilitySkills
innovation problem solving critical thinking creativity risk management adaptability strategic thinking resourcefulness leadership teamworkA one- to two-day event in which companies present students with real-world challenges and ask them to create and present innovative solutions, either individually or in teams. Typically, hackathons culminate in a pitch competition where companies and other stakeholders act as judges, providing feedback and ranking the best solutions.
Upon successful completion of an Experience Ventures Hackathon, student participants receive a stipend valued at $325, paid in part by Canada's Work Integrated Learning Initiative.
Deliverables will vary depending on the scope of each hackathon. Project and adjudication criteria will be presented at the start of each challenge to ensure clarity and fairness in the evaluation process.
Project Examples
In 2023, AltaML partnered with the University of Alberta's Computer Engineering Club to host HackED, one of Alberta's largest student-run hackathons. AltaML developed the problem statement for over 75 challenge participants:
"Develop a content moderation tool for social media platforms that utilizes GPT or builds upon any existing models to detect and flag hate speech, misinformation, and harmful content. Ensure model fairness across diverse demographics, mitigate biases, and prioritize explainability in content flagging decisions."
Social Impact: Teams aimed to not only develop innovative applications but also ensure that the AI models were accountable, ethical, and served the best interests of users and society as a whole.
Guidelines:
- Teams were encouraged to utilize existing solutions rather than building or training models from scratch, given the time constraint.
- Teams were encouraged to design and build the user interface in a way that made the tool easy to use.
This event served as a model for future hackathons, demonstrating the successful collaboration between academia and industry to address real-world challenges. We invite companies to propose partnerships for upcoming hackathons, fostering innovation and providing valuable learning experiences for students.
Companies must answer the following questions to submit a match request to this experience:
Would you like to act as a subject-matter mentor, workshop facilitator or a judge for this or future Challenges in the Student Innovation Centre?