Iridescent Announces Winners of Inaugural AI Family Challenge World Championship

Iridescent announced the winners of its debut AI Family Challenge World Championship. The championship event, hosted at Intel’s Santa Clara campus, was the culmination of Iridescent’s AI Family Challenge, in which 7,500 people from 13 countries participated in a 15-week program that brings together families, schools, communities and industry mentors to create AI projects that solve local problems.

The winners are:

Junior Division:

• Technology Award: The Mayet Family, Pakistan, “Cavity Crusher” whose algorithm uses AI to monitor a child’s brush time and determine their oral health habits to notify parents accordingly
• Social Impact Award: The Vega-Hidalgo Family, Bolivia, “Duckweed Vacuum Cleaner” uses a camera to collect data for its image recognition algorithm aimed at detecting and vacuuming duckweed from Lake Titicaca
• Inspiration Award: The Rana Family, Palestine, “My Drawings Speak Up” uses image recognition technology to analyze children’s drawings and notify an adult when a child is facing bullying

Senior Division:

• Technology Award: Team De La Paz, United States, “Shoo” uses a live camera to collect images and pass them through an image recognition algorithm to determine if a dog is in a specified area. If an animal is present, the device emits a high pitched sound that deters it from staying.
• Social Impact Award: The Pifive Team, Spain, “Scoutbot Water Guardian” is a wearable device that uses an image analysis algorithm to determine if a swimmer is safe. If a person is at risk, the device will send a signal that emits a red light.
• Inspiration Award: The Innovators Team, Uzbekistan, “Spiky! Bullying Detector” is a mobile app that uses uses machine learning to analyze communications from a child to guess the probability of bullying. Spiky will send an alert to parents if action is needed.

The Rana Family also received the “People’s Choice Award,” the result of open voting from AI Family Challenge participants and supporters from all over the world leading up to the event.

The judges were Gabriela González, Deputy Director and Operations Manager at Intel Foundation; Eva Ho, General Partner at Fika Ventures; Brad Neuman, Technical Director, AI, Planning & Navigation, formerly at Anki; Michael Palmer, SVP of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data at U.S. Bank; and Allen Rush, Senior Fellow, Radeon Technologies Group at AMD.

“The AI Family Challenge aims to bridge the AI knowledge and confidence gap for children and adults around the world. These families prove that AI can be accessible to everyone,” said Tara Chklovski, founder and CEO of Iridescent. “We want to inspire more people to become lifelong learners, and we have many wonderful partners supporting that mission, providing not only financial support for the program, but also critical mentorship so children and adults alike can start to see themselves in future leadership roles.”

The AI Family Challenge partners with lifelong learning advocates and leading experts in AI, including those from Google.org, NVIDIA, Intel, and the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation. Learn more about this year’s finalists, the AI Family Challenge, and sign-up for season two here.

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