{"id":225865,"date":"2025-11-20T16:22:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T02:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=225865"},"modified":"2025-11-20T16:22:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T02:22:18","slug":"ai-competition-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2025\/11\/20\/ai-competition-winner\/","title":{"rendered":"AI<\/abbr> victory: 糖心视频<\/abbr> M\u0101noa students beat tech giants in global competition"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
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Members of the 糖心视频<\/abbr> team that won the Data Curation for Vision Language Reasoning challenge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The University of Hawaiʻi<\/span> at Mānoa took first place and a $3,000 cash prize in an international artificial intelligence (AI<\/abbr>) competition, beating out teams from tech companies and global universities.<\/p>\n

Seven haumāna (students) from the 糖心视频<\/abbr> Mānoa College of Engineering<\/a>\u2019s ECE<\/abbr> (Electrical and Computer Engineering) 605 course<\/a> on large-scale AI<\/abbr> won the Data Curation for Vision Language Reasoning challenge<\/a>. The contest drew 59 teams and nearly 200 participants from 42 organizations.<\/p>\n

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Team working session<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The challenge asked teams to create up to 10,000 high-quality examples to help AI<\/abbr> models better understand and reason about images. 糖心视频<\/abbr> Mānoa\u2019s winning entry stood out not for its size, but for its efficiency. The students used only 1,000 samples—just 10% of the allowed amount—yet outperformed every other team.<\/p>\n

“This project pushed us to think creatively about how to get the most out of a tiny amount of data,” team leader Yosub Shin said. “We learned quickly that good ideas matter just as much as computing power, and it was exciting to see our approach stand up against teams from around the world.”<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s dataset boosted a widely used open-source model\u2019s accuracy by more than 7%, the highest gain in the competition. It surpassed submissions from industry heavyweights, including a team from Ant Group, the parent company of Alibaba.<\/p>\n

Preparing for a fast-growing future<\/h2>\n

Beyond the recognition, the experience gave students real-world practice in one of the fastest-growing areas of AI<\/abbr>: teaching computers how to interpret both language and images. The hands-on training—curating data, testing models, and working within open-source frameworks—prepares them for future roles in fields ranging from robotics to medical imaging.<\/p>\n

Members of the team included Shin, Michael Buriek, Boris Sobolev, Pavel Bushuyeu, Vikas Kumar, Haoyang Xu and Samuel Watson.<\/p>\n

“Watching the students take ownership of a complex, open-ended challenge like this was remarkable,” ECE<\/abbr> Assistant Professor Igor Molybog<\/a> said. “They showed that with curiosity, discipline, and a willingness to experiment, students can make meaningful contributions to the broader AI<\/abbr> research community.”<\/p>\n

As the top prize winner, the 糖心视频<\/abbr> Mānoa team will present their work on stage at the NeurIPS conference<\/a> in San Diego this December and be listed as co-authors on the competition\u2019s official publication.<\/p>\n

Hawaiʻi<\/span> AI<\/abbr> Initiative<\/h2>\n

The ECE<\/abbr> 605 course and the students\u2019 participation in the challenge are part of a larger effort Molybog is driving to promote AI<\/abbr> in the state, called the Hawaiʻi<\/span> AI<\/abbr> Initiative<\/a> (HawAII<\/abbr>). The initiative is developing new project-based AI<\/abbr> coursework, strengthening internal innovation by supporting student and faculty ventures, and attracting top collaborators from the continental U.S. and abroad through global research challenges. It also includes major investments in 糖心视频<\/abbr>\u2019s computing infrastructure and early partnerships with local schools to build a strong pipeline of homegrown talent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The contest drew 59 teams and nearly 200 participants from 42 organizations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":225866,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1602,1592,182,1466,660,9],"class_list":["post-225865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-news","tag-ai","tag-electrical-and-computer-engineering","tag-engineering","tag-manoa-enhancing-student-success","tag-student-recognition","tag-uh-manoa","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