AI project ideas for your next hackathon!

Long are the days artificial intelligence was something out of a sci-fi movie.

AI has become a fast-growing industry, with an estimated rise of 30 to 40% by 2028, thanks to the exceptional rapid expansion of computer science.

From the automotive industry to health care or mainstream technology, artificial intelligence has proven to be one of the most significant revolutionary elements of the upcoming digital era.

There are endless possibilities and applications for you to develop an AI project, but we compiled five AI project ideas that have actually won hackathon competitions.

1. Safety map for cyclists 🚴‍♂️

The CycleAI project was developed for Microsoft’s “Building the Future” hackathon, which challenged participants to come up with innovative solutions on Electric Mobility.

Currently, cyclists still face many dangers on the road, which prevents greater use and adherence by commuters (increasing, in turn, the number of combustion vehicles, pollution, traffic, and so on).

The team behind the project created an AI model that can estimate a cyclist’s perceived road safety score. For entire cities, a map of safety would be generated at a low cost.

The goal is to treat centralized datasets in a way that empowers cyclists for their own safety.

The application of the tool was divided into two main approaches:

• Creation of the Machine Learning model, both for B2B (Uber, Bolt, Glovo cyclists, among others) and B2C (casual riders and commuters).
• Build up a municipality’s Datahub, offering them a joint urban planning service at a fraction cost of other multinationals.

The CycleAI project won the prestigious Microsoft hackathon, proving that a solid, well-designed concept backed up by data and AI, can have a huge impact on our daily lives.

AI project idea 💡

You can use artificial intelligence and machine learning models to develop safety tools that can identify hazardous situations beforehand.

2. Smart environment tracker 🏡

The Smart Environment project was developed under the City Hack 2021 hackathon, which aimed to find technological solutions to improve the quality of life in cities.

Water wastage has been a determinant role in the world’s environmental issues in recent decades, and its preservation, as well as the sensible use of water, has become one of the century’s most recurring challenges.

To address these issues, it is vital to be aware of the quantity and quality of environmental resources used on a daily basis, in order to make insightful and sustainable decisions.

This project idea was designed to listen to the environment by sensing occurrences in a precise, quantitative, and qualitative approach, to better understand environmental phenomena and how to respond to them.

The Smart Environment network is the application of IoT sensors that record environmental conditions, consumed by artificial intelligence algorithms in order to mobilize precise alerts and action mechanisms in real-time.

The network is composed of several nodes of environmental sensors, connected to a central processing unit, responsible for coordinating and connecting the network to the internet.

The data would then be segregated into different categories and shown in a dashboard, so users could track and monitor different parameters such as infrared levels, butane and methane gas levels, water temperature, soil humidity, or UV rays index, to name a few.

AI project idea 💡

You can use artificial intelligence for the sake of the environment and contribute to a more sustainable society.

Combining AI algorithms with other technologies can get you the best of both worlds.

3. Team-building app 🫂

The next project is called “Team Dynamics” and it was developed for the ALT+F hackathon. This hackathon challenged innovators to solve global challenges and define the future of people’s development and social impact.

In today’s corporate world of ‘work from home’ and remote hiring, managers face a big challenge to build a productive team of individuals, where not just technical skills, but also their interpersonal skills align as well.

A team that works well together is far more productive and has fewer disputes.

With this in mind, the team developed a complete application that provides managers with a variety of tools to form a cohesive team, perform team-building activities, and manage employee onboarding sessions.

What differentiates this app from others on the market is, in fact, its artificial intelligence and data-driven component.

The app aims to match teams based on various analytical metrics, obtained from the interaction between employees in the organization.

Based on the feedback provided by all the participants, the application will perform various analytical and statistical operations and generate interactive visualizations and insights.

This, in turn, will provide managers with several options to form highly productive and efficient teams.

AI project idea 💡

You can incorporate AI systems with already existing tools and apps. Using artificial intelligence to help source relevant data and generate insights is a great example.

4. Urban agriculture 🪴

Another perfect use case of AI is the project “GrowIn”, built for the TecStorm 2021 hackathon. This hackathon seeks disruptive ideas for 3 categories, one of them being sustainable development, which this project fits in.

There is growing concern about the way we produce food, both in terms of its impact on the environment, as well as the quality of the food that reaches the consumer.

The team’s plan is to use a modular system of intelligent agriculture to democratize and decentralize agriculture.

GrowIn brings agriculture — and, most importantly, fresh, organic, and sustainable food — into your house by combining the power of automation, sensing, and artificial intelligence.

The project idea is to empower everyone to contribute to the solution, setting the conditions for a long-term community production ecology.

The rack, a simple structure that automatically measures and adjusts the many variables required for horticulture growth, is the system’s most important component (the brightness, temperature, humidity of the medium).

The rack includes:

• Support structure and irrigation circuit (reservoirs, pipes, etc.);
• Sensors (by resorting to a camera feature), light sensor, ambient humidity and temperature sensor, soil moisture sensor, and water level sensor;
• Control through a microcontroller and actuators such as LEDs and electrovalves;
• Artificial Intelligence that implements a predictive model for disease identification;

More advanced modules can be integrated into this basic unit, such as nutrient concentration control, pest and disease control in plants, and size, weight, and color verification, all of which contribute to a more automated and efficient process.

AI project idea 💡

The team developed an AI model that can identify and control pests and diseases in plants. You can implement this idea for other similar projects and industries, combining it with different resources and apps.

5. Tools usage tracker 🔧

The HILTI Smart Construction hackathon was created with the goal of developing, testing, and validating novel concepts for intricate construction projects.

Participants were asked to create a concept or solution that combines modern technologies such as IoT, computer vision, and robotics to capture and interpret relevant data in the field using real-world data.

The winning project was created by a single participant, who designed a prototype to measure tool usage in day-to-day operations.

The entire process on the construction site can be visualized and a better understanding can be achieved by identifying smaller segments of operations.

By resorting to machine learning and AI, the retrieved data could then be utilized to optimize a range of diverse activities, such as finding the best tools for a certain task or detecting misusage or dangerous tool actions.

This data can be used to optimize and fix problems with higher precision, for future improvements.

AI project idea 💡

Just like we’ve seen so far, many AI project ideas are designed to improve safety, but with totally different approaches.

For this project, a mechanism was created to track tools usage and collect data. Then, use artificial intelligence to sort the data and retrieve valuable information, which can improve the quality of work and time management.

That concludes our list of AI project ideas!

Not only are these examples brilliant, but they also won their respective hackathon competitions, proving their potential in future applications.

We are confident that these initiatives will inspire you and help you in testing and validating your own ideas.

Do you want to be an innovator?

Every project we mentioned in this list was developed for hackathons in TAIKAI. Head over to our latest hackathons and join our amazing community of +50,000 innovators ⚡