Axiata Digital Labs, Sri Lanka’s most innovative digital transformation enabler, announces the launch of its first-ever Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Analytics event, the ADL AI Summit. This virtual, three-part event is geared towards those looking to grasp the fundamentals of AI, learn how to apply AI 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 hackathon was open for anyone in the world. The event was sponsored by Amazon Web Services (Platinum Sponsor), Snowflake (gold sponsor), Dell Technologies (Silver sponsor), Dialog (Enterprise Connectivity Partner). The entire event was divided into two sections. First one was a pre-hackathon which was hosted for four days. The second one is the final hackathon which was for one day.

Pre-hackathon,

During pre-hackathon, there were two sections for the competition. First was to participate in Kaggle Competition which contained 70% marks and Second one was to complete a scenario based analytical quiz, which consisted of 30% of the mark. A Kaggle competition round where you will have to predict the best mobile plan for telecommunications customers. Teams had been given a dataset consisting of customer data of 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 free usage quota in terms of data, voice and text messages. A MCQ round with AI related Business and Technical questions. 20 Questions within 30 minutes.

Result of Pre-hackathon,

After completion of the pre-hackathon, from 100+ teams, top 30 teams were shortlisted based on the kaggle & quiz result. 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. First phase was a thematic technical phase. The theme for our AI/ML based hackathon was to create a digital twin. A digital twin is 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 had been asked to develop some Digital Twins based on the given datasets. Datasets were of  different types and varieties like structured/unstructured data, demographic/geographic/telco data, csv/geoloc/json data etc. All the necessary developments and deployments are strictly restricted to the AWS environment only. We had been provided S3 buckets, AWS Sagemaker single instance, AWS CodeCommit, REST API Gateway, S3 Static Web host etc. to spin the entire solution end to end.

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 solving the problem, the teams needed to present a technical deck, where they showed the problem and the solution in a detailed technical manner. The teams also needed to demonstrate the solution.

Parallely,

The teams needed to complete the followings in one day, Problem Statement & Solution Proposal (Within 12 hours), Commit the Final Code to designated Repo, Technical Presentation & Report, Business Presentation.

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.

After the completion of the technical presentation, the business presentation started for 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 and two Bangladeshi teams were in the top 5. Later based on the technical presentation, completion of the full end to end product and the business presentation, top 3 were selected. Again, two Bangladeshi teams were in the top 3. One of the bangladesh teams was first and the other bangladeshi team was second.

The prize giving ceremony had Chris Howard, AI/ML Technical Leader, AWS, Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya, CEO, Telecommunication Business & Group and the 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.

Winners, who won $5000, sponsored by AWS, Team Instinct consisted of Imran Ahmed, Nuren Shams, Ishfaq Zaman, Istiak Rahman, Nur Alam.

Second Runner Ups, who won $3000, sponsored by Dell Technologies, consisted of S M Yeaminul Islam, Ifaz Ahmed Aflan, Syed Ibna Zubayear, Abid Hasan Muin, K.M Mehedi Hasan Sonet.

One of the second runner up winners, Ifaz Ahmed Aflan said that, “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 technical presentation, create business presentation, prepare for technical presentation & QA, prepare for business presentation & QA. I am confident the news of our footprint in the world of AI/ML will surely encourage a lot of enthusiasts, which will help Bangladesh in general expand in the field of AI/ML at an astonishing speed.”