During April 15-17 Digital Future held the first AI Hackathon in Ukraine. The first place was taken by Botvertiser — an advertising platform for publishing ads in chat-bots. Over 100 people participated in the event and 18 teams reached the final. Here are some of the very first impressions and feedback about AI Hackaton we received durung the event from the jury members and organizers.
Denys Dovgopolyi, GrowthUp, Jury member of AI Hackathon: «My overall impression about the first Ukrainian AI Hackathon is strongly above expectations».
Michael Nestor, Founder of LifeTracker, AI Hackathon mentor: «Hackathon looks so exciting in the beginning so we can expect that it will result in very prominent AI projects by the end of the second day»
Oleksii Vitchenko, CEO of Digital Future, ideologist of AI Hackathon: «AI Hackathon results exceeded our expectations three times. We thought that the Hackethon would result in 5, well, a maximum 6 projects, but received 22 ones, and 18 projects – at the final stage of Hackathon», commented .
Victor Kompaneyets, Lead of Investments, Digital Future, Mentor of AI Hackathon: «Amazing teams, competent mentors, fantastic discussions! Philosophical reflections and shocking, unusual ideas, smart jokes and bright seriousness, dynamic ups and downs, good and bad times for every team».
During the preparation stage, we could not believe that AI theme is so highly regarded among the participants. And even more – that will get together so many teams: initially we expected at least 10 teams and finally, we managed to host 22 teams. The majority of the teams focused on chat bots and assistants technolosiest, the most trending topics as a part of AI teme now.
«It is clear that most of the projects are very raw at the moment, but if they continue to work, they would reach good results pretty soon. We are very serious about investing in up to five projects we consider the most promising», — comments Oleksii Vitchenko, CEO of Digital Future.
Botvertiser was named the winner of the AI Hackathon. «With help of Botvertiser service, the bot owners can easily connect to advertising networks in order to monetize their products. At the same time, the publisher gets the most persolalized contact with the audience, and the user sees only the relevant advertisements», — explained the founders of the project.
The second place went to Botgun designed to create and promote the chat bots with ready-to-use templates for small and medium businesses.
The third place winner is — Friend In Need — a mobile app that can recognize the fall of a person, and call for help or send an alarm message with geo location, if the app owner can not get up.
As planned earlier, Digital Future will introduce all the final pitches videos of the projects participating AI Hackathon to Amazon Web Services Venture Capital and Startup Bootcamp Barcelona giving the opportunity for the projects to develop their ideas, using the network of Digital Future and confirming its reputation as smart-investor that facilitates the growth of startups focused on western markets.
Jury of AI Hackathon consisted of the most prominent representatives of Ukrainian tech space: Oleksii Vitchenko (Digital future), Eugene Sysoev (Aventures), Denys Dovgopolyi (GrowthUp), Dmitry Maydanyuk (Noosphere), Michael Kharenko (UVCA), Ruslan Savchyshyn (MagneticOne) and Nicholay Palienko (Prom.Ua).
The mentor panel included Georgi Giorgadze (Inity), Andriy Dashkov (Dataerion), Maksym Dyachenko (Sapiens), Kiril Zakharov (Together Networks), Victor Kompaneets (Digital Future), Olexander Mykhailenko (Mobify), Yuri Mykolyshyn (Intel), Michael Nestor (LifeTracker), Olexiy Sivokon (DataRobot), Sergiy Shelpuk (QRhythm).
The idea of AI Hackathon belongs to Oleksii Vitchenko, CEO of Digital Future. The event was included in the program of Kyiv Startup Week.