Our inaugural AI hackathon, #AIEduHack 2024, is officially over!
The two-day hybrid hackathon took place from April 16 – 17, 2024, and was focused on developing AI solutions to transform education in Africa.
Over 50 passionate university students and AI enthusiasts, gathered in Enugu State, Nigeria, alongside leading local tech organizations and communities, to compete for a share of the $2,000 prize pool and post-hackathon incubation support, sponsored by HackerX, Educare, AFEN Blockchain and Klaytn Foundation.
The Tracks
We received submissions from over 10 teams leveraging AI to address challenges and opportunities in the following areas:
Personalized learning and assessment
Accessibility and inclusivity
Teacher support and professional development
AI & Blockchain for education - special track sponsored by Klaytn
The judges were impressed by the effort put into each project, especially given the short timeframe.
Here's a breakdown of the judging criteria:
Impact: how clearly defined and impactful the educational challenge addressed was for students and teachers in the Nigerian ecosystem.
Innovation/Creativity: We evaluated how creatively the solutions utilized LLMs and generative AI technologies, and how intuitive the user experience was.
Functionality: We checked if the core functionality worked as intended,if it was a solid MVP demonstrating key features, and how much original code was written.
Business Viability: We considered if the project had a clear target market and the potential to become a sustainable business.
The Winners
Overall Tracks
🥇 First Place: Team Gamma — Best AI School
An AI-powered app designed to assist students in their exam preparations. The core functionalities of this app include (i) extracting text from images of study materials (e.g., textbooks, class notes), (ii) summarizing extracted text for quick review, and (iii) creating flashcards for key concepts and revisions.
🥈 Second Place: Team Fireside — School Tools
Schooltools is a platform where students can use AI to generate multiple-choice practice questions from e-books they study with.
🥉 Third Place: Team QuizDeck — QuizDeck
QuizDeck is an AI-powered interactive quiz platform designed to improve how students learn new topics. Users can create quizzes using prompts, explore, and share personalized quizzes tailored to their interests.
🎖 Honorable Mention: Team Blinders — DUSH
Dush is an AI-integrated assistive web interface that aims to help dyslexic and blind people in universities navigate studying with text, by providing image description and text-to-speech functionality.
AI & Blockchain Track
🥇 First Place: Nkowa-Akwukwo
An AI-powered digital publishing platform built on the Klaytn blockchain. With Nkwoka Akwuko, authors can publish digital books as NFTs and earn royalties. The platform is also embedded with a RAG bot, through which readers can chat with books, generate quiz questions, and receive personalized insights from the decentralized digital library.
🥈 Second Place: EduChain
EduChain leverages blockchain and AI to personalize learning experiences for students. By analyzing student learning data, the platform recommends tailored learning paths, offers interactive modules, securely stores records on a blockchain ledger, and rewards students for their performance.
What's next for these projects?
While the AI EduHack may have come to a close, our journey with the hackers is far from over.
Through our incubator program, we'll continue to work closely with the most promising projects, giving them access to our network of industry experts, investors, and potential partners, to help them launch and scale their solutions and create a lasting impact on education in Africa and beyond.
A collective success with our partners
Projects like AI EduHack are really a team effort, and we couldn't have pulled it off without the support of our partners and the community.
We deeply appreciate Sean Lin and Peter Ayo of the Klaytn Foundation for their support throughout the project, from Sean championing the partnership, to Peter's informative AMA session and contribution to the judging process.
Special shout-out to our co-sponsor, Educare, and its CEO, Alex Onyia, who graciously sponsored and coordinated the venue and food during the finale, to ensure participants had everything they needed to focus on building.
We also appreciate Osita Chidoka, the former Nigerian Minister of Aviation, for gracing the event finale and inspiring the builders to tow the path of excellence.
Finally, we are grateful to our community partners who played a vital role, from promotions to volunteering, judging, and coordinating logistics, ensuring that the event ran smoothly and impacted students and builders in South-East Nigeria.
Uche Edeoga, Emmanuel Chinedu, and Chidiebere Ekennia of Blockchain Hub Africa, Kevin Chibuoyim and the Blockchain UNN community, Ibekwe Kingsley of Data Science Nigeria (UNN), and Play2Learn, to name just a few.
Paul & Debbie, on behalf of the entire HackerX team, appreciate your contribution, and look forward to doing more together in future!
About HackerX
HackerX empowers African builders in the blockchain, AI & robotics industries, by providing education, funding, and mentorship opportunities to help them launch and scale globally.
We provide:
🎓 Education: through technical and non-technical courses, bootcamps, and workshops.
💸 Funding: through hackathons, grants, and access to investors in our network.
🧑🤝🧑 Events: in-person and virtual events to help you learn, connect, and grow your network.
🌱 Incubator Program: support with product development and business strategy for early-stage projects.
Join our community!
👉 Website: https://hackerx.africa
👉 Telegram: https://t.me/hackerxafrica
👉 Twitter: https://x.com/hackerxafrica
More pictures from the event
