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.
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.
'We want to increase the capability of having doers in the IT ecosystemâ€"not only people who can come and talk about AI, but people who can build things that have a real impact in the community,' Djomga stated.
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.
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.
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.
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.
According to the organizers, the judging criteria for the AI Connect Hackathon will focus on four key areas:
First, impact â€"judges will assess the project's long-term potential for growth and its ability to improve people's lives. Second, creativity â€"the originality and innovation of the AI application will be evaluated. Third, technical implementation â€"the quality of the technology's execution will be taken into account. Finally, presentation â€"the team's final pitch will be judged on how compelling and clear it is.
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.
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).
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.
'I have had my idea for the last six months. I have been yearning for an opportunity to bring it into being. When I saw this hackathon, I saw an opportunity to build something that no one has seen before,' Rusimbi told IGIHE.
Wycliffe Nyamasege
