From April 19 to April 20, ECSW was filled with over 250 people writing code, training machine learning models and pounding down energy drinks to develop software projects for HackAI, UTD’s largest AI-focused hackathon.
The Artificial Intelligence Society at UTD, also known as AIS, has run the hackathon since 2016. Participation at the hackathon has grown dramatically since its inception, with this year’s HackAI boasting almost twice as many participants as there were at the previous competition, which took place in 2023. According to Roshni Patel, psychology senior and AIS president, the goal of HackAI was to allow a diverse array of developers to come together and explore the uses of AI.
“This [event] is open to beginners as well, and so [people of] all skill levels … [can walk] away knowing how AI impacts the world and how it can be beneficial,” Patel said. “A lot of people are like ‘AI is bad’ [and] there’s ethical implications and things like that so we want to make sure [that] people use it ethically and see how it can be beneficial.”
The hackathon was sponsored by a total of 12 organizations, with competition tracks run by NRVE, LTIMindtree, Unshackle AI, Nebula Labs and Sauce Bros contributing to a total of 14 different tracks. These sponsors ranged from multinational IT companies like title sponsor LTIMindtree to local businesses like Westlake Eye Specialists. Patel said that a diverse selection of organizations were chosen as sponsors to highlight the many uses of AI.
“[We] wanted to highlight startups because AI is such a buzzword right now,” Patel said. “There’s tons of startups starting, but we also wanted to show that AI is not necessarily just [useful] to one industry … it can be utilized in many different ways, hence why we’ve got such a wide variety [of sponsors].”
During the hackathon’s 24-hour timeframe, participants could attend a panel on using Amazon Web Services for AI, take a Tai Chi workshop and enjoy the free snacks and energy drinks available to all participants. Mihir Tirumalasetti, data science sophomore and AIS co-director of operations, said that running the event was only possible because of all the planning done beforehand.
“[When planning a hackathon] there’s a lot of things to consider … a lot of that comes down to just putting people where they need to be and [ensuring] there’s no conflicting issues with that,” Tirumalasetti said. “At the end of the day, HackAI is really just an operations and industry type event — it’s a lot of planning events and making sure they go through and keeping up with industry sponsors and things like that.”
Bifocal, an application that can detect signs of domestic abuse through AI-powered analysis of voice messages and texts, won the AIS general track at HackAI. Data science junior Shreya Akula was one of the four people who developed Bifocal, and she said that creating a project for HackAI gave her a new perspective on AI.
“I always use AI, but I never thought I’d be good at building an AI tool myself, even though I use them so much so often,” Akula said. “But [building an AI app] is helping me understand what’s actually really going on behind the scenes. I think [it went] better than I really expected and I feel like I would [like to] approach this situation again or this type of problem again.”
The winners of each track walked away with hundreds of dollars in prizes, ranging from new iPads to air fryers. Tirumalasetti said he hopes that everyone, not just the winners, have something they can walk away with.
“At the end of the day, I want [participants] to [have] a good time,” Tirumalasetti said. “Things like the events we do … and connecting with the industry speakers and things like that [contribute to] a professional experience and [a] fun experience at the same time. I think that’s my main goal here. Just [making sure] everyone leaves with something amazing.”
