2nd and 3rd cycle artificial intelligence students successfully completed the AI x Science Hackathon. The teams that won the first and the second place included doctoral students – Krzysztof Galus, M.Sc., Oleksii Furman, M.Sc. and Patryk Wielopolski, M.Sc., as well as a second-cycle student – Filip Strózik, B.Sc. The third place was taken by a team consisting of second-cycle students Dawid Wolkiewicz, B.Sc. and Łukasz Lenkiewicz, B.Sc. from the Solvro research club. Congratulations!

To qualify for the hackathon, the teams had to demonstrate their previous achievements. Of more than 30 interested teams only 10 were invited to participate in the competition. The participants had limited time to complete their task.

– The biggest challenge was the eight-hour time limit, and completing the task required a review of the literature, knowledge of technology, and creativity in system design – says Krzysztof Galus from the winning team.

The task was to create an AI system focused on generating new scientific hypotheses in the fields of medicine and biotechnology. The specific topic, which was rheumatology, was disclosed to the teams during the event.

– Although my doctoral research is in a different field, I have been following med tech for years and eagerly seek ways for AI to accelerate treatment and improve diagnostics. This achievement is particularly valuable to me because it allowed me to set myself an ambitious challenge and practically apply artificial intelligence in medicine – adds Krzysztof Galus.

As reported by the Solvro research club, "the hypotheses were formulated with the use of knowledge graphs and external information sources". The team also used APIs of scientific publication databases. Then an AI agent was used to verify the credibility of the generated hypotheses and reject those that were incorrect or not innovative.

Our students explain that the autonomous system expanded its knowledge base by acquiring new information from external databases. Then, with the aid of scientific publications, it formulated hypotheses along with references to sources that supported them. In effect, it was possible to understand the system's line of reasoning.

The Hackathon winners from our Faculty included:

• 1st place – the team with Krzysztof Galus, a PhD student from the Department of Artificial Intelligence.

• 2nd place – the team with PhD students from the Department of Artificial Intelligence – Patryk Wielopolski and Oleksii Furman, who is also a member of the Solvro club. This team also included an artificial intelligence student Filip Strózik.

• 3rd place – the team with members of the Solvro club – Artificial Intelligence students Dawid Wolkiewicz and Łukasz Lenkiewicz.

– The third place is the result of a considerable effort by the entire team. The BeeARD Hackathon is a truly high-rate event. The participants included doctoral students, scientists, and start-up founders, and therefore we are even more pleased to stand out in this group – emphasises Dawid Wolkiewicz, a student from Solvro research club.

The top teams received prizes of 10,000 PLN for first place, 4,000 PLN for the second place, and 1,000 PLN for the third place.

The AI x Science Hackathon took place on 14 April in Wrocław. It was organised by the Wrocław startup BeeARD and Google for Education. One of the event's organisers – and also a mentor for one of the teams – was the founder of the Solvro club, Mateusz Walczak.

The photos from the hackathon are courtesy of BeeARD.