Two teams from Ukraine made it to the finals of the Microsoft’s The next AI Guardians international competition, the goal of which is to provide young people with a chance to reach their potential and use the potential of artificial intelligence (AI).
According to a Microsoft press release in Ukraine on May 15, the competition will result in the implementation of creative solutions for students, researchers and teachers in the field of education based on AI technology.
In total, teams from 28 countries took part in the competition. In the second stage, 20 teams passed, of which six finalists were selected.
The company notes: a team of Ukrainian Catholic University students with KeyAccess projects (software for Windows and UNIX operating systems that allows you to configure the keyboard for users who are struggling with cerebral palsy or other diseases) and Smart Educational Assistant (SEA) went to the finals of “The Next AI Guardians” with ideas that are already able to improve education through the use of artificial intelligence.
KeyAccess was developed by Maria Hirna, Zhenya Molodtsov, Zenyk Popeniuk, Danylo Kolinko and Nazar Bachynsky together with their teacher Oleh Fareniuk. The motivation for creating KeyAccess for the team members was their friend Anton, who has cerebral palsy.
Smart Educational Assistant (SEA) is an assistant that provides the user who has selected and defined skills for development in the system the latest Internet resources with training courses and combines them into a complete curriculum.
At the second stage of the competition, the teams worked with Microsoft specialists in the field of artificial intelligence. Specialists helped participants better understand how AI can be used in real life.
At the end of the stage, the teams of participants presented their projects to the jury at Microsoft Teams. To support their wards, both mentors and their professors joined. The team had only 15 minutes to present the project, after which the participants answered questions from the judges.
The AI University Virtual Bootcamp finals will be held June 18 online. Finalist teams will get a chance to sell their idea to representatives of the most successful companies. Each team will receive a business mentor who will help her describe her idea in a meaningful business plan.
In addition, six teams of finalists will take part in a two-day hackathon in Budapest (Hungary), which will be held at the end of quarantine, and will receive Microsoft Surface.
