Vietnam AI Grand Challenge team Tech Fam wins the Vietnam AI Grand Challenge in Danang.
The second hackathon in the Vietnam AI Grand Challenge series took place from July 5th through the 7th at Duy Tan University in Danang. The government-backed event was organized by the Ministry of Science & Technology and the Ministry of Planning & Investment in collaboration with Kambria, VnExpress Newspaper ,VietAI, McKinsey, and the Vietnam Innovation Network. The hackathon’s theme, building the "Ultimate Virtual Assistant," involved the application of AI technology in supporting both people and businesses in four areas: health, education, retail services, and social issues relating to women and children. Teams were asked to build AI applications using available APIs, data, and developer tools, including the optional use of Ohmni robots developed by OhmniLabs.
During the 3 day event, teams from Can Tho City, Quy Nhon, Hanoi, Da Nang and Hue focused on building their virtual assistants using highly applicable AI technology in areas such as the vehicle technology, manufacturing, banking services, hotels, retail services, and more. On the final day of competition, each team gave two product presentations before the expert judging panel. Based on both the presentation and working product, judges selected the best eight teams to move on to the final round.
The judging panel consisted of experienced leaders from prominent technology companies, and brought together a variety of different backgrounds and expertise, all with a single focus: to choose the most innovative ideas.
The judging panel included:
- Mr. Son Phong Nguyen - Director of Da Nang Branch of Orient Software Software Development Group - one of the leading international software outsourcing companies in Vietnam. Additionally, Son is a postdoctoral researcher at the Toyota Institute of Technology at the University of Chicago.
- Mr. Hai Nam Dang - Head of Product Development Department of Kambria and OhmniLabs. Hai has over 10 years of experience in operating and developing innovative technologies.
- Mr. Minh Tuan Nguyen - Head of Natural Language Processing at Defide Company - a unit that develops Japanese commercial chatbots. Prior to his time at Defide, Mr. Nguyen was the technical manager of AI at Panasonic R&D and Mobivi 1GC.
Exam teams presenting their product to the expert judges.
After deliberation from the expert judges, winners were crowned. Meeting the criteria for a first place win, the five person team from FTech AI “Tech Fam” took home a generous sum of $4,000 for their 3 day effort. Team members Tuan Quoc Nguyen, Son Ngoc Bach, Thanh Duy Nguyen, An Trong Le, and Hung Hoang Pham created a virtual shopping assistant useful for finding products according to specific customers’ needs. Their AI assistant was named victorious due to its unique and innovative features. “Smart,” Tech Fam’s cleverly named virtual assistant, automatically extracts useful information from online products to display to the user, while synthesizing comments, and evaluating the data to provide consistent information specifically catered to each individual user.
Duy Tan University's software solutions team, DTU CSE, won second place with a chatbot product designed to serve customers in retail chains. Third prizes went to Father Life, with the idea of building a human-like AI virtual assistant, and Hydra for an innovative healthcare assistant bot. Father life’s AI assistant identifies human emotions, compares and stores them in a database, thus guiding the exercise by assessing the level of completion (number of times, posture) of the user through a camera. Hydra's healthcare virtual assistant advises patients, mothers, and elderly on proper healthcare using aggregated data from medical records.
The next hackathon in the series will take place in the Northern region of Vietnam. 80 teams will compete on July 12th-14th at the National Economics University in Hanoi. Winning teams from all 3 cities will continue to participate in project training and incubation services for the 2 months leading up to the Grand Finale round. The AI4VN Vietnam Artificial Intelligence Association event will take place on August 15 in Hanoi during the event.
In the Grand Finale, the winner of the competition will receive $10,000 USD, 1st runner-up will receive $4,000 USD, and the 2nd runner-up will receive $2,000 USD. In addition to the opportunity to receive prizes with a total value of up to $40,000, participating teams will also be connected to large corporations who can promote the development of the project, creating a global impact, and propelling their ideas forward. To learn more, please visit https://aigrandchallenge.com or Facebook Event Page.
