Hackathon: Excitement for the USI Informatics Marathon

From 25 to 27 October, the Hackathon was held at Università della Svizzera italiana (USI). 60 participants used artificial intelligence (AI) to address concrete problems proposed by the companies involved in the event. This was covered in "Il Quotidiano" (RSI).

60 participants were selected from a pool of 130 applicants to participate in an actual IT marathon that lasted three days and two nights. The event featured well-known companies such as Swisscom, Bosch, and Duferco. During the marathon, the young participants were tasked with identifying a suitable AI model, developing their own algorithms, and training the model to address a specific business problem using data provided by the companies. As told by one student who worked on the Swisscom case, "our job is to assist customers, for example when they call the hotline or chat. The AI must be able to understand the question and come up with an answer". Another participant involved in the Bosch project shared not only his enthusiasm for the event but also his experience: "We collect data from machines that report issues along the production line. Our goal is to identify which parts of the production process are causing these errors so that we can resolve them. I chose to participate in the Hackathon because I enjoy spending a weekend programming with my friends".

Using AI to develop models capable of predicting solutions requires resources in terms of time and energy, as explained to RSI by Andrea Brites Marto, co-organiser of the Hackathon. "This task can be very time-consuming depending on the data volume and the model's architecture. Above all, training AI models consumes significant energy".

The Hackathon was also designed to be a showcase, able to act as an intermediary between students and companies. "The aim," explained Mauro Prevostini, programme manager of the Faculty of Informatics, "is to put students and companies in contact: companies might notice particularly bright students and want to hire them. In the same way, students could become interested in certain jobs, both Swiss and international".