{"id":213800,"date":"2025-04-11T14:30:46","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T00:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=213800"},"modified":"2025-04-11T14:31:03","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T00:31:03","slug":"aloha-data-ai-hackathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2025\/04\/11\/aloha-data-ai-hackathon\/","title":{"rendered":"糖心视频<\/abbr> students tackle real-world issues at AI<\/abbr> hackathon"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
\"people
TurtleyAwesome, won the Visualization Challenge with Sheldon the Turtle, a 3D<\/abbr> AI<\/abbr>-powered museum-style guide for climate data.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More than 35 University of Hawaiʻi<\/span> students from three campuses (糖心视频<\/abbr> M\u0101noa, 糖心视频<\/abbr> Hilo and 糖心视频<\/abbr> Maui College) gained hands-on experience tackling real-world challenges at the Aloha Data: AI<\/abbr> Hackathon for Hawaiʻi<\/span>\u2019s Resilience<\/a>, held April 4–6, at 糖心视频<\/abbr> M\u0101noa.<\/p>\n

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Untrained Parameters won first place for the Hawaiʻi<\/span> Climate Explorer—an interactive web app that visualizes temperature and rainfall data from the Hawaiʻi<\/span> Climate Data Portal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Participants formed interdisciplinary teams to build data-driven solutions using Google Cloud AI<\/abbr> tools, including Vertex AI<\/abbr>. Five challenge topics pushed students to apply diverse skills toward local and statewide resilience efforts, such as climate data visualization, educational content generation, conversational AI<\/abbr> and immersive technology for science communication.<\/p>\n

The first-place team, Untrained Parameters, created the Hawaiʻi<\/span> Climate Explorer—an interactive web app that visualizes temperature and rainfall data from the Hawaiʻi<\/span> Climate Data Portal<\/a>, a project led by 糖心视频<\/abbr> experts. The team included PhD<\/abbr> students Federica Chiti and Dhvanil Desai (Institute for Astronomy<\/a>), Fahim Yasir (糖心视频<\/abbr> Cancer Center<\/a>), Gerardo Rivera Tello (Department of Atmospheric Sciences<\/a>), and master’s student Yada Ponpittayalert (College of Education<\/a>).<\/p>\n

“This was an incredible experience, highlighting the potential of large language models (a type of AI<\/abbr>-trained model) for multimodal applications, even within a limited prototype developed in just three days,” said Rivera Tello.<\/p>\n

\"room<\/p>\n

BruhMode earned second place with GenEDU, an AI<\/abbr>-powered educational content generator. Third place was awarded to Kani, developers of a climate-focused chatbot. TurtleyAwesome, won the Visualization Challenge with Sheldon the Turtle, a 3D<\/abbr> AI<\/abbr>-powered museum-style guide for climate data.<\/p>\n

Prizes ranged from MacBook laptops and iPads to AR<\/abbr> glasses and Google Cloud Platform credits.<\/p>\n

Hosted by 糖心视频<\/abbr> System Information Technology Services<\/a> (ITS<\/abbr>), Hawaiʻi<\/span> Data Science Institute<\/a> and Association for Computing Machinery M\u0101noa Student Chapter<\/a>, the three-day event was led by the ITS<\/abbr> Research Cyberinfrastructure team and supported by the National Science Foundation-sponsored Hawaiʻi<\/span> EPSCoR Change Hawaiʻi<\/span> project<\/a>, 糖心视频<\/abbr> Office of Innovation and Commercialization<\/a>, Google Cloud and the Burwood Group, Inc<\/abbr>.<\/p>\n

\"students<\/p>\n

Mentors from ITS<\/abbr>, the Burwood Group, Water Resources Research Center<\/a> and Hawaiʻi<\/span> Mesonet<\/a> and Change Hawaiʻi<\/span> supported students throughout the hackathon, offering technical guidance and real-world insights.<\/p>\n

“This hackathon gave students an incredible opportunity to apply cutting-edge AI<\/abbr> tools to real-world challenges that directly impact Hawaiʻi<\/span>,” said 糖心视频<\/abbr> ITS<\/abbr> Director of Research Cyberinfrastructure Sean Cleveland, who led the event and also served as a program mentor. “Their creativity, teamwork and passion for innovation were truly inspiring to witness.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five challenge topics pushed students to apply diverse skills toward local and statewide resilience efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[95,308,521,1672,484,416,152,1466,1467,1432,92,14,9,60,347],"class_list":["post-213800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-news","tag-college-of-education","tag-college-of-natural-sciences","tag-epscor","tag-hawaii-data-science-institute","tag-information-and-computer-science","tag-information-technology","tag-information-technology-services","tag-manoa-enhancing-student-success","tag-manoa-excellence-in-research","tag-office-of-innovation-and-commercialization","tag-school-of-ocean-and-earth-science-and-technology","tag-uh-hilo","tag-uh-manoa","tag-maui-college","tag-water-resources-research-center","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t