Apply for Hackathon on Plastic-Free Rivers with Artificial Intelligence Towards Sustainability

Deadline: 9-Jul-23

RACE REVA University has launched the Hackathon on Plastic-Free Rivers With Artificial Intelligence Towards Sustainability to create new technologies and strategies to reduce plastic waste and create healthier and more sustainable rivers and oceans.

Let’s create a ripple effect of change by harnessing the power of AI to protect the rivers and water bodies. Participate in this exciting AI Hackathon and help us positively impact the environment. This Hackathon is aligned with Sustainable Development Goals – SDG 14 life water, conserving and sustainably using marine resources.

AI Solutions to Tackle the Plastic Menace: The Hackathon is on detecting plastic in water bodies like rivers of select locales. The participants of the Hackathon would have to detect, classify, and segment the plastics in the given dataset and propose a viable and architecturally sound AI solution to curtail the plastic menace choking the water bodies like rivers, preventing them to be taken into the sea and contributing to some of the garbage patches like Pacific Patch. The solutions must have actionable insights where the stakeholders, like the government and local support groups, can take preventive or proactive measures.

Plastic Pandemic: How Plastics Are Invading the Environment?

Plastic pollution has become a major environmental issue, as it can take decades or even centuries to decompose. This poses a serious threat to the water supplies and quality, as plastic waste from discarded water bottles, polystyrene coffee cups, grocery bags, and synthetic clothing fibres breaks down into tiny microplastics that can contaminate water sources.

Benefits of Participation

• Get mentored by Industry Leaders
• Win a chance to incubate your solutions
• Win Amazing Cash Prizes and Swags
• Be a Contributor in Mission SDG.

Prizes

• Hackathon offers a chance to not only showcase your skills, but also win big!
  • 1st  Prize: ₹1,50,000 & USD: 1,800
  • 2nd Prize: ₹1,00,000 & USD: 1,200
  • 3rd Prize: ₹50,000 & USD: 600
  • Top 10 Finalists: Branded Swags.
• Note: TDS & currency exchange rates will be in accordance with the prevailing regulations and rates at the time of payment.

Phases

• Phase I: Model building
  • Detection and Counting of Plastic
    • Label the images for plastic. Accurate labeling is part of the Hackathon challenge.
    • AI-based object detection and counting of plastic in the images.
    • Geotagging and mapping of plastic.
    • Submit the results.
• Phase II: Prototype submission
  • Feasible Solution and System Architecture
    • Demonstrate and deploy a feasible solution with system architecture for implementation. Show tech stack, dashboards and downstream actions which trigger a set of events for the detection and estimation of plastic and weeds.
    • Submit a prototype or an MVP.
• Open Innovation Challenge
  • For special jury award
    • Build a spatiotemporal model capturing the metadata available in the images, including Latitude and Longitude, to detect moving and stationary plastic, weeds and other debris in the images.
    • You may use any state-of-the-art algorithms to build efficient solutions to detect and curb the plastic menace, which can help local authorities to take intelligent actions. Build a solution to identify the severity of the menace and develop an early intervention and warning system.

Eligibility Criteria

• AI Developers, AI Enthusiasts, Data Scientists, ML Engineers, Programmers, freelancers, students etc, can participate.
• Participants must have experience with object detection models and frameworks, such as YOLO, TensorFlow Object Detection API, or OpenCV.
• Participants must have a good understanding of image processing techniques and deep learning algorithms.
• Participants should demonstrate their ability to implement and fine-tune object detection models for real-world applications.
• Participants must be familiar with data annotation and cleaning techniques.
• Participants should have experience in programming languages such as Python.
• They must be able to work collaboratively in teams and communicate effectively.
• They must be able to submit a detailed report, codes, and relevant files.
• Participants should have a strong passion for creating innovative solutions to tackle the global plastic waste problem.
• Note: Individuals and teams of maximum 4 members can participate.

Rules and Regulations

• Anyone, corporate teams, individuals, startups, veterans, and academia with a promising idea towards plastic menace and the tenacity to implement their concept can apply.
• It is an online hackathon, and you can participate from anywhere.
• The hackers must register in a team of a maximum of four members (no minimum). While registering, all members must share their profiles.
• All participants/team are expected to submit their final ideas in a PowerPoint Presentation (PPT) format along with code.
• The submitted solution must be original; if found plagiarised, the submission will be disqualified.
• The teams may use open-source libraries and other freely available systems like labeling tools, GPU with Google Collab, Data Bricks, etc.
• If any of the Teams would want GPU support from the University, you may approach us.
• For labeling the images, you may use free tools like labelImg or CVAT.
• The intellectual property of your submissions belongs to Kyndryl.

Judging Criteria

• Technical Criteria:
  • Evaluation metric: Mean Average Precision (mAP) confidence interval for the validation data set or any other equivalent metrics.
  • Code quality – Codes must be well-commented and clear.
  • Optimisation – The code must be efficient, use the least possible memory or disk space, and minimise resources like GPU and network bandwidth.
• Non-technical Criteria:
  • Replicable –The solutions must be easily replicable by the evaluation team.
  • Clarity – The architecture and the solution presented must be clear and comprehensive.
  • Impact – A solution that provides actionable solutions to control the plastic menace in scale is appreciated.

For more information, visit RACE REVA University.