On February 21, the first overseas university artificial intelligence hackathon of Tomorrow Group successfully concluded at Columbia University. In this online competition connecting Beijing and New York, young students from home and abroad showcased their innovative thinking and practice in the frontier field of AI+education, and sprouted more technological industrialization.

Tomorrow Group joins hands with international universities to create an international learning exchange platform for AI+education

This competition was co-hosted by Tomorrow Group's AI Engineering Institute and the Chinese Students and Scholars Association at Columbia University (hereinafter referred to as Columbia Student Union), aiming to provide an international learning and practice exchange platform for students who are interested in exploring AI+education and interested in technological industrialization. At the same time, Tomorrow Group also hopes to promote the exchange and training of innovative young talents in China and abroad, and promote the introduction of outstanding scientific and technological talents in the domestic education industry.

Columbia University is a world-class private research university located in Manhattan, New York, ranked 3rd in the 2019 US News American University Rankings. It is also one of the three major gathering places for Chinese students in North America, with a total of over 5,000 Chinese students and scholars. The Columbia Student Union is the largest Chinese student organization at the university and has a significant influence among Chinese students in the United States. This competition has also attracted many Chinese students to sign up enthusiastically.

Due to the sudden outbreak of the epidemic in China, the event could not release the test questions on site or have a centralized display. The entire event was conducted online. Based on their practical experience in the education industry, the mentor team of Tomorrow Group's AI Engineering Institute designed projects with clear application scenarios and a balance of theory and practice for the students. After the first round of selection, a total of 9 teams entered the final round on February 21. After the group presentations and online Q&A session in the final stage, the judges finally determined the top three winners based on the test set prediction results, code, and learning reports submitted by the participants.

In this competition, students conducted in-depth and specific research on the integration of artificial intelligence and education, exploring many innovative achievements, such as OCR text recognition, NLP mathematical question semantic matching, and so on, all of which were unanimously recognized by the judges. Many participating students felt the enormous development potential of AI+education in China, and at the same time realized that the most important abilities for talent in AI+education are the ability to learn quickly and to apply technology to practical scenarios.

Tomorrow Group empowers young talents and promotes the development of AI+education in industry, academia, and research

As a leading education technology company in China, Tomorrow Group has rich educational scenarios and data resources, and the data used in this competition are from the resources open on Tomorrow Group's AI open platform.

Yang Songfan, head of Tomorrow Group's AI Engineering Institute, said that education issues are fundamental and can continue to generate compound interest. When better educational resources are provided to the recipients, they can live better lives and provide greater value to society, creating an incredibly important virtuous cycle.

In order to give more young students the opportunity to understand the importance of technology in the field of education, this competition was open to students without a computer background. At the same time, Tomorrow Group's AI Engineering Institute designed the competition as a "learning week," with a clear one-week learning path, along with relevant learning materials and guidance, and online Q&A with experienced industry mentors to help students quickly accumulate the basic knowledge needed to participate in the competition.

This competition has no threshold and does not have specific requirements for participants' education or background. Even students who are simply interested in the competition can participate as observers in the online demonstration section. All students who participated in the competition felt the enormous development prospects of AI+education in China, and deeply realized that the most important abilities for talent in AI+education are the ability to learn quickly and to solve the practical application of technology. The members of the award-winning team and many participating students expressed that they were honored to participate in this competition. The topics were well taken care of, from beginners to advanced, and the day-by-day learning plan and related learning materials designed for the participants helped the team members make significant progress and growth within a week. They not only systematically understand project knowledge points and analysis but also apply them to real business problems, benefiting greatly!

The staff responsible for the event from the Columbia Student Union said, "The hackathon is one of the most important activities for the student organization. During the communication and collaboration with Tomorrow Group over the past few months, we encountered the outbreak of the epidemic, as well as the obstacles of transoceanic distances and time differences, but we overcame them together and efficiently completed the entire competition. The students at each stage found their own positions here and gained a lot from the event."

Technology is the core support, and talent is the core drive. Tomorrow Group hopes to strengthen the theoretical, algorithmic, and basic hardware and software research of artificial intelligence in the education industry through the operation of the intelligent education national new generation artificial intelligence open innovation platform, open more industry resources and experience, connect technological talents with educational applications, and attract more outstanding technological talents at home and abroad to contribute to the education industry, jointly accelerating the progress of education.