I recently attended the Hackathon Hands-On with AI, which was hosted by AI-tech UK at the spacious offices of xDesign in Leeds. The event was a great opportunity to learn about the applications of AI technologies in different fields, and to get hands-on experience with them, particularly the Data Science offering within Microsoft Azure.
After the kickoff, there were a number of breakout sessions where attendees could learn more about specific AI technologies, including open source examples provided by the University of Bradford. I attended an ideation session with two of their Doctorates who specialised in AI.
In the afternoon, we had the opportunity to work on our own AI projects. I worked on a project with direct application to the data pipelines that I create at work. I had a lot of fun working through ideas on this project, and I learned a bit more machine learning.
The event ended with a session where attendees talked through their ideas. I was really impressed by the creativity and ingenuity of the use cases suggested by the teams.
The week after the hackathon, I had the opportunity to present my project at The AI Show, a follow up event run by AI-tech UK. I was really nervous about my presentation, but it ended up going really well. I was able to share my project with a panel of experts, and I received a lot of positive feedback. I didn’t win the ongoing mentoring, but the two projects that did were both projects for social good and very deserving.
The AI Show was a good chance to meet new people including developers from the Leeds area and beyond and I came away with some interesting conversations and great new connections.
I’m excited to continue learning about AI, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the future holds for this amazing technology.