Welcome To Code For Humanity 1

The 'Code For Humanity' hackathon invites participants to create innovative AI solutions addressing global challenges based on the Sustainable Development Goals. Teams must develop software that integrates AI ethically and responsibly, with their projects evaluated on problem criticality, solution relevance, UI/UX, completeness, and ethical AI use. The event aims to showcase the positive potential of AI while addressing concerns about its misuse and societal impact.

Uploaded by

antsustef

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

0% found this document useful (0 votes)

7 views4 pages

Welcome To Code For Humanity 1

Uploaded by

antsustef

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

You are on page 1/ 4

Welcome to Code For Humanity!

You are about to start a great challenge! First of all, we would like to thank you for
participating in this event. Not only will you compete, but you'll also learn and grow your skills
in software engineering and AI integration. We hope you enjoy this challenge as much as we
enjoyed preparing it for you!

Context

The subject of artificial beings and autonomous -decision making- machines have always
intrigued many people in the field of science and philosophy since the Middle Ages. We
could even trace back mentions of artificial people in Antiquity, but among the first concepts
of a « robot » is a humanoid drawn by Leonardo Da Vinci, discovered in one of his
notebooks written in around 1495.

There were not really mentions of how those automata would « think » back then, even until
The Mechanical Turk hoax, the public seemed to just accept that « it plays chess very well »,
thus endowed with intelligence, without really questioning how.

It was way later, in the 1940´s, that scientists started to seriously question if a machine is
really capable of intelligent reasoning, the same as humans do. The discussion around the
possibility of creating an electronic brain started, oddly (or expectedly) just a few years after
the first programmable electronic computer was invented.

But it was in the mid 1950's that the field of Artificial Intelligence as we know it today was
born. From then, AI has been on and off the hype, with more than a decade of « AI winter »
in the 80’s and 90’s. Where one big comeback happened in 1997 when Deep Blue beat Gary
Kasparov in chess --world champion then-- for real this time. Another big public hype of AI
was in 2015 when AlphaGo beat two Go champions Fan Hui (2nd dan) and Lee Sedol (9th
dan) , the game of Go being notoriously difficult to create an effective AI for, due to its
exponential time branching factor.

Finally, in late 2022, the hype spiraled out of control with the release of ChatGPT. Until this
day, AI is still one of the most discussed subjects on the internet, especially Generative AIs.
From amazement and curiosity to skepticism and fear, AI is in almost everybody's mouth on
the internet, in addition to the push that tech corporations do on it as the revolutionary tool
for creativity and productivity.
Problem

There is no doubt that AI "is" a boost on productivity, especially in automating

mundane/repetitive tasks, despite it being average to awful in terms of quality. It is so
"efficient" that it has not only positive impacts on businesses, but a lot of negative impacts on
social and human life, the most notable being job displacement due to automation. It can
also give to people with bad intentions the power to harm more effectively than ever
(deepfakes, privacy violations, weapon automatization, etc.). With all those, it's no wonder
why anti-AI protests and movements are rising, especially in the northern hemisphere and
among digital artists, where AI has the most impact on society and their livelihood.

Not all uses of AI are "bad" though, there are many areas where AI was (and is) thrivingly
used for the benefit of humanity, like in the medical field where it's used to help diagnose
cancer faster, in homeland security to help dismantle a network of human trafficking, in video
games for improving the gaming experiences in terms of graphics performance and NPC
interactions, or in science to help capture the first ever image of a black hole. The list goes
on, there are a lot of good (and potentially good) uses of AI, that are mostly off the hype and
ignored by the majority of the public.

The Challenge
This is where you have a role in. You are being challenged to find good uses of AI, and
demonstrate to the public that AI can be used ethically and responsibly for the benefit of all
humans. You will have the responsibility to create innovative solutions for the problems that
the whole of humanity is facing at this moment, with the help of AI.

The problems that you are asked to consider for this challenge are the 17 "Sustainable
Development Goals", listed and described in the following link:
https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals

1. Choose one or more goals:

First of all, go through the list above and understand their descriptions well. Then
choose one or more goals that you would like to tackle, EXCEPT "#4 Quality
Education" and "#6 Clean Water and Sanitation" as they were already used as
templates for a previous hackathon.

2. Describe the problems and their criticality in depth:

Once you have chosen one or more items from the list, elaborate on them and
rephrase the problems with your own words, while strongly focusing on how critical
the problem(s) is(are).
N.B: Do not limit yourselves to Madagascar, consider the whole of humanity on earth.

3. Describe your solution, its relevance and risk mitigation, then implement it:

Make a convincing description of the solution you found for the problems you chose,
focusing on how relevant achieving it would solve them, describe how AI was used
and evaluate the -potential- risks in its implementation.

N.B: Your solution must be implemented, it can be any kind of Software Engineering
solution (web app, mobile app, desktop app, an AI model, a simulation or mix of all
these), that has been "coded" by your team.

4. The solution must follow Google’s Responsible AI principles: read more about it
here: https://ai.google/responsibility/principles/

Evaluation

At the end of the competition, you will present and demonstrate your solution to a jury, that
will evaluate and score it based on the following criteria, for a total of 85 points:

● Description and criticality of the problem(s): 10 points. As already described

above
● Description, relevance and risk mitigation of the solution: 25 points. As already
described above
● UI/UX: 15 points. To evaluate how easy it is to use your solution and how appealing
the aesthetics are.
● Completeness and Continuity: 15 points. How much of what has been planned
was completed at the end of the hackathon? Is the solution as efficient and useful as
expected? What’s remaining to be continued and how important are they, how do you
plan to make an impact with your solution?
● Ethical and Responsible use of AI: 20 points. How was AI used/implemented in
your solution (during the implementation, as part of the solution or both)? Explain
how AI was used and why it is ethical and responsible in your solution.

Summary (bullet points)

● The theme of 2024's DevFest is "Responsible AI"

● Following this theme, we have crafted the "Code For Humanity" hackathon for you to
compete in finding a solution to some problems of your choosing based on the
"Sustainable Development Goals" list
● Your solution must be a software developed (coded) by your team, that has to
integrate AI
● You will demonstrate your solution to a jury and they will evaluate it based on specific
criteria
● You can get a maximum of 85 points, distributed as follows
○ Description and criticality of the problem(s): 10pts
○ Description, relevance and risk mitigation of the solution: 25pts
○ UI/UX: 15pts
○ Completeness and continuity: 15pts
○ Description of ethical and responsible use of AI in your solution: 20pts

Conclusion

To conclude, we are very aware of how fast AI is evolving, its power and how it's being
adopted. Many misuse and deviance of this powerful tool can pose risks to human life,
mostly at societal level. But there are many benefits of AI that are somewhat hidden by the
corporate hype around it. We gave you some examples, but we hope you will help find and
show off more of it through the participation in this hackathon, and reconcile the current
perception of AI with what our ancestors have imagined many centuries ago: a helpful
-intelligent- tool for the whole of humanity.

On that note, we wish you all good luck, give your best and get to win! 😉
CCBYNC - Crafted by Luco Ramaromanana, reviewed by AlgoMada - for DevFest
Antananarivo 2024, in partnership with GDG Antananarivo