Austin Community College District (ACC) and Scale AI welcomed dozens of students and soldiers from the Army Software Factory at the ACC Rio Grande Campus for a special hackathon workshop. The event exposed students to new artificial intelligence (AI) tools and technologies to foster exploration and friendly competition.

Check out the image gallery above for highlights from the event.

Scale AI — a data-centric AI platform — provided participating students and soldiers access to one of its unique AI-powered decision-making platforms called Donovan to create innovative AI solutions. 

Participants competed throughout the day to build projects, learn large language models, and receive guidance from Scale’s industry-leading engineers. Working in teams, the students and soldiers showcased their skills and creativity, developing pioneering solutions in a supportive environment. 

The event also encouraged the development of functional prototypes with potential real-world applications. The collaboration aims to nurture and explore students’ interests in STEM, particularly in AI.

• The first place team built a system using Donovan to aggregate Large Language Model (LLM) responses to user queries and dynamically return the optimal response based on the average embeddings.
• The second place team leveraged Donovan to build a training tool inspired by Jeopardy™ that generates new game templates based on user entered topics, enabling students to learn new concepts in a fun and engaging way.
• The third place team used Donovan to build an educational research database for law enforcement focused on counter-narcotics.

To learn more about ACC Computer Sciences & IT programs, visit austincc.edu/csit.

Tags: AI, Army Futures Command Software Factory, CSIT, Hackathon, information technology, Scale AI, Software Factory, technology