UmojaHack Africa, continent’s first virtual inter-university AI hackathon set for tomorrow

Data science competition platform Zindi will tomorrow host what it calls the “first-ever virtual inter-university artificial intelligence (AI) hackathon for students across Africa”.

The UmojaHack Africa will see student teams at universities across Africa compete while honing their skills and developing machine learning solutions to complex real-world challenges.

The organisation said in a statement yesterday that over 70 universities from 17 African countries, with an estimated 2500 students, have registered to participate in the hackathon taking place on Zindi’s online platform.

Zindi said with social distancing in place and serious concerns about the spread of coronavirus, it plans to demonstrate the power of its online platform to crowd-solve challenges in health, education, environmental conservation, and business.

Over 70 universities from 17 African countries, with 2500 students, have registered to participate in the UmojaHack Africa hackathon

These teams of data scientists will be working to find the best solution for three real world challenges, namely: a hotspot fire prediction challenge, an automated image classification solution for photographs of marine invertebrate challenge and a challenge around a machine learning model to predict purchase behaviour of customers on the Xente app.

The top-performing team in each of three challenges will be awarded prize money of $1000, $600 and $400, respectively. Teams placed second and third in each category will be awarded learning opportunities from one of the sponsors of the event.

The associated university will receive $7500 (1st category), $5000 (2nd category), and $2500 (3rd category).

Zindi CEO Celina Lee said the day’s activities will be live streamed on Zindi’s YouTube channel, from the launch of the hackathon through to when we announce the winners at the end of the day.

“We will host discussions about the three challenges, check in with universities and participating students around Africa, and respond to questions via live streaming. Zindi’s platform makes this all possible despite the health challenges the world is currently facing,” she said,

Sponsors of the event include Microsoft, African Bank, Google Research, Liquid Telecom, Alliance4ai, Instadeep, and the Field Institute.

Read more: Zindi calls on students to enter machine-learning hackathon UmojaHack Africa

Featured image: xresch via Pixabay