Futurewhiz’s AI powered Hackathon: The rise of DonkAI Bridge!

First things first, let’s set the stage.

Day one: the air was buzzing with excitement, along with the smell of croissants and coffee. Our Futurewhizzers were divided into 14 formidable teams, each embarking on a mission to revolutionise our platform using AI. Armed with laptops, caffeinated beverages, and an arsenal of snacks, the stage was set for an intense battle of innovation.

The hours ticked away rapidly, as the office transformed into a vibrant hive of activity, from engineers to designers, everyone had a part to play. The coders were feverishly typing lines of code, and the data scientists crunching numbers at the speed of light.  Late night brainstorming sessions gave birth to even more new and ambitious ideas, some more far fetched than others. The atmosphere was a unique blend of focused determination and contagious excitement.

Day two quickly rolled around. With those early morning rays of sunlight creeping through the office windows, teams were greeted to a new day of bleary-eyed enthusiasm. Sleep deprived but motivated, they soldiered on, fueled by another delicious team breakfast – the smell alone was enough to awaken everyone’s creativity! With a ticking clock the teams rushed to finish their pitches before the deadline of 12.00. Time for a well-deserved lunch break! Eventually, the moment of truth arrived, as each team got the chance to showcase their final innovation, and there were some truly great ideas.

And the winners are….

Now, let’s talk about the true heroes in this epic tale – DonkAI Bridge, who certainly took the spotlight to be crowned winners of the Hackathon extravaganza! In the new age of tik toks (and short attention spans) the team wanted to come up with a catchy, creative way for children to memorise difficult words they have trouble with.  Their idea? Using AI, the children will be able to generate a songtext that will help them remember the difficult terms.  AI is then also used to create an actual song out of the songtext, so that the children can listen (and learn) on repeat!

Their quirky name, and infectious energy, as well as hilarious pop culture references won the hearts of everyone present. Not to mention a certain donkey costume which rumour has it took 2 hours (!!) of driving to collect – if that’s not dedication, we don’t know what is!

Fostering Innovation and Creativity

Other teams also pitched great innovations. Some examples: “the finger counters” to help kids with math, a memorising model with spaced repetition, an FAQ Whizard, a personal AI learning buddy, “the storytellers” to learn with stories like Harry Potter or Mario, “Airis” that let you speak with historical figures… and many more great ideas!

The Futurewhiz AI Hackathon was not just about coding and competition, it was about fostering innovation and creativity, as well as great camaraderie between our colleagues. The event has highlighted the incredible potential that AI has to empower students even further. DonkAI Bridge’s triumph showcased the power of humour and imagination in engaging learners, and their victory serves as a reminder that learning should be fun, captivating, and tailored to each individual’s needs. As we move forward, and reflect on our epic hackathon, we will continue to support and nurture such groundbreaking ideas that will continue to shape the future of education.

So, raise your pizza slice to DonkAI Bridge, the tireless organisers who made the hackathon happen, and of course, to all the incredible teams that participated. Together, we are creating a brighter, smarter and more entertaining future of learning for our children. 

Cheers!