By Palesa Mofoti
mLab Technical Centre hosted an Artificial Intelligence (AI) mashup hackathon competition at the SMME Village in Galeshewe last week.
The AI hackathon mashup was hosted under the theme “Sustainable Artificial intelligence,” where coders were tasked with creating sustainable solutions for everyday societal problems using artificial intelligence.
Microsoft, MTN, Youth Employment Service (YES), AI Expo Africa and mLab were the mashup partners. The hackathon occurred for seventy-two hours in four locations, including Northern Cape, Limpopo, Gauteng, and KwaZulu Natal. Each location hosted fifty participants.
However, it was not the case with the Northern Cape, where only eleven participants participated in the hackathon. Aqua Flow, Muni-Solve Bot, Hikelift and SoldierUp Hackers were the participants in the Northern Cape.
They presented their concepts to the adjudicators in both the provincial and national rounds of the competition. Soldier-Up Hackers and Hikelift were ultimately declared the winners for provincial and national platforms.
Vusumzi Shoun Ngobese, Palesa Goeieman, and Luvuyo Golimpi were the designers of Hikelift, a web platform designed to make hitchhiking safer.
The five-member Soldier-Up Hackers team namely Dimpho Maboee, Malvin Maphosa, Kitso Marake, Mishi Makade and Liyema Ngqezu created a web application that allows graduates to get in contact with relevant recruiting companies. This application will make job hunting much more effortless matching curriculum vitae and making it easier for a recruiter and graduate to find each other, bridging the gap much quicker, he said.
Liyema Ngquze, a member of the Soldier-Up Hackers, also studied ICT at Sol Plaatje University. Marake, a final year Data Science student at Sol Plaatje University, expressed her delight working with her team, stating: ‘The pressure was there,but the spirit we had made us push”.
Fezibongo Rubushe, a member of mLab’s CodeTribe team who was also part of the Aqua Flow Hackers squad enjoyed the experience, “It was hectic, especially the part where you don’t sleep. I learned about networking with people and sharing ideas. It was just a new experience as this was my first hackathon”.
The participants’ concepts were met with mixed reactions from the adjudicators who felt that the hackers could have dug deeper by fine-tuning their concepts. One of the judges, Tshegohatso Tshukudu related how they could have bought the relevant stakeholders who would have listened to the presented concepts.
Both SoldierUp Hackers and Hikelift, who emerged victorious from the strenuous hackathon, walked away with a staggering R10 000 prize each for their businesses. They were also provided with an incubation period where mLab will provide business development and mentorship to fine tune their concepts.
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