Artificial Intelligence National Competition

About the Competition

This is a national competition challenging students, developers, professionals, and researchers to develop and demonstrate how humans can collaborate with powerful Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to tackle some challenges for different applications. This opportunity will also raise awareness of AI technologies in Qatar, support building local capacity in this timely and crucial area, and provide a platform for participants to share AI ideas and applications.

The competition consists of two tracks, and participants are required to submit either a "Concept & Design" or "Proof of Concept & Demo".

Level 1 of the competition: Concept and Design

Level 2 of the competition: Proof of concept and Demos

The competition consists of 5 phases:

Idea Submission	Sunday, November 15, 2020
Announcement of shortlisted ideas	Tuesday, December 1, 2020
Solution design / development	duration 4 months
Project Submission	Monday, March 1, 2021
Project testing and demos (track 2)	Thursday, March 4, 2021 (venue: TBA)
Announcement of winners	Thursday, March 11, 2021 (venue: TBA)

 

Please note that only one submission will be considered later in the evaluation stage, and we encourage the participants to register early so that you can begin to plan and build your solution/demos and submit them on time.

The competition will recognize the developers who are paving the path for future innovative AI technologies that can be deployed to support infrastructure and address challenges for different applications as highlighted below.

We are looking for creative and innovative AI solutions, which can be deployed to resolve practical problems including but not limited to:

• Problem 1: Healthcare solutions
• Problem 2: AI in Education
• Problem 3: Automatic and real-time detection of trolls over social media
• Problem 4: Real-time AI solutions for assisting sports referees to take prompt decisions
• Problem 5: Crowd monitoring and behavior analysis and prediction
• Problem 6: Detection and prevention of attacks and malware
• Problem 7: Drones emergency services
• Problem 8: Logistics impacting the supply chain and security challenges due to the blockade

Track Details  

The details of the two levels are as follows:

Track 1 of the competition: Concept and Design

The teams are requested to describe their concept and design in the form of an article. A presentation that shows the proposed solution must be presented in front of the juries. The evaluation criteria for this track will be mainly on your innovative idea (60%) and the feasibility of implementation (40%).

Track 2 of the competition: Proof of concept and Demos

In this track, the teams are requested to articulate their proof of concept in the form of a detailed article. A technical presentation must be done to show the proposed solution and the conducted experimentations, in addition to a live demo to demonstrate the actual implementation of the proposed solution. The evaluation criteria for this track will be on the innovative idea (30%), the feasibility of implementation (30%), and the performance (40%).

The article and the presentation must be submitted before the deadline. The templates of articles for Track 1 and Track 2 can be downloaded from here:

Level 1: Conecpt and Design template

Level 2: Proof of Concept template

Eligibility for Participation

AI national competition is open to all individuals who are living in the State of Qatar. High school students, undergraduate students, and graduate students are able to participate in the competition. Experts (e.g., professors and/or professionals) can act as mentors for high school and undergraduate students. Mentors will not receive a prize, but their efforts will be acknowledged, and a certification will be provided. Participants are eligible to participate either individually or as a team. The maximum number in a team shall not exceed 3 participants.

Any participating team is allowed only for a single submission.

Data Protection and Confidentiality Agreement

By joining the competition, the participants must provide their personal information, which will be used by the organizers for administration purposes and prize pursuance. All applications will be processed confidentially. Selected ideas may get further funding support. The organizers reserve the right to cancel an application if any kind of violation has been detected.

Prizes and Notification of Winners

The prizes of the AI national competition will be provided for a single individual or one team. There are 6 prizes in total, 3 for each track. The prizes, per each track, are as follows:

MAIN CHALLENGES

PROBLEM 1: Healthcare solutions

Artificial intelligence plays a vital role in the field of healthcare. It is capable of providing fast approximate conclusions to speed up diagnoses even without direct human involvement. Diverse intelligent healthcare solutions have been proposed varying from personalized, real time-monitoring, self-diagnosis, among others.

Due to the recent corona virus (COVID-19), awareness toward identifying and detecting suspected positive cases became substantial. Intelligent solutions remain in demand to prevent and limit the spread of such pandemic. For instance, an intelligent solution can help in reducing the number of false negative and false positive cases of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests. Estimating the possibility of new positive COVID-19 patients who need intensive care and cautious support is yet another challenging task.

PROBLEM 2: AI in education

Artificial intelligence has a significant impact on education in which it can support and improve the process of learning. AI-based platforms can facilitate the learning process, particularly with the challenges confronted due to the unexpected COVID-19 disruption of classes. Furthermore, creating AI-based applications that serve not only the students but also the instructors call for a special attention. Education at any time, complying with the requirements of students, students’ progress tracking, curriculum improvement, seamless identification of challenges in education process, and employment of mobiles in education are among the feature inherited from the deployment of AI in education.

Moreover, students with special needs, such as mentally challenged children, also require distinctive attention. In this context, it is beneficial to design intelligent responsive applications that can identify the need of students with special needs and capable of elucidating the instructions using a virtual teacher that imitates the actual special education teacher.

PROBLEM 3: Automatic and real-time detection of trolls over social media

With the widespread of social media and its huge impact on people's lives, we are witnessing the rise of "digital trolls"; accounts controlled by a group of people who are explicitly paid to support specific political agenda on social media. Trolls try to influence the public opinion, spread fake news and hate speech, impose (at best) a cloudy image of how communities react to significant events.

Moreover, troll accounts may trick automated analytical tools that aim to understand the stance of people regarding important national issues. The goal is to tackle this problem by proposing and/or developing a system that can help to dynamically identify those trolls/accounts and thus mitigate their effect. As a relevant model, the proposition of an intelligent solution that is capable of distinguishing factual and fake social content, such as content in textual news, illustrated images, and videos, which are typically used by individuals to follow up on the news.

PROBLEM 4: Crowd monitoring and behavior analysis

It is of paramount importance to have reliable and real-time surveillance systems, especially for a major upcoming event such as World Cup 2022 in Qatar. As the camera-based surveillance becomes ubiquitous, the amount of data to be processed grows along with the camera network presence and with the demand for human resources to interpret the data. This project aims to monitor and detect certain “security threats” in real-time over the live surveillance camera network in Qatar.

Proposed systems should combine the power of Deep Learning and Computer Vision, and should be able to be integrated into the Qatar control center of city surveillance cameras. In this context, the employment of an AI framework to recognize people and their movements in crowd flows is paramount from its kind to autonomously reveal security threats.

Problem 5: Real-time AI solutions for assisting referees to take prompt decisions

Each football match is controlled by a referee who has the full authority to enforce the Laws of the Game of the match. In this problem, the main aim is to propose an intelligent solution to assist the referee in providing more accurate decisions whenever there is a penalty, fall, or any kind of fouls or cheating. Such solutions must provide, in real-time, the needed guidance and assistance to the referee to keep the match performing without missing important circumstances and deceptions.

Computer-vision techniques and deep learning techniques can be employed to satisfy the requirement of the proposed solution. Besides, the solution must be accurate and should satisfy FIFA rules and regulations. For instance, the automatic identification of faults or fouls, in a match, from videos captured by one or more cameras and promptly notifying the referee, is one of many examples.

Problem 6: Detection and prevention of attacks and malware

With the recent development of technology that is capable of revolutionizing diversified kinds of sports players, coaches, event organizers, and supporters, securing such devices and their communication is of paramount importance. A cyberattack is any sort of offensive behavior that targets digitized information to steal data, modify records, destroy content, or to perform other illegal activities. Malware, on the other hand, is programmed to run by themselves to attain the desired attack(s). Nowadays, various technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms can help in revealing attacks and malware.

The main aim of this problem is to propose a solution that can promptly detect attacks or malware and apprehend the offender. As an example, in this context, an attacker may access the Wi-Fi network in hotels to snoop or spy on guests to steal financial information.

Problem 7: Drones for emergency services

Unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, have demonstrated their capabilities in reaching intended locations readily. They can serve in delivering emergency supplies in a timely and efficient manner. In fact, reaching precise locations in a crowded area is not an easy task, especially if there are one or more critical conditions. The main aim is to provide an intelligent solution that can control multiple drones to serve as an emergency response system. Increasing the flight duration and payload capacity is another challenging matter.

Problem 8: Logistics impacting the supply chain and security challenges due to the blockade

Artificial Intelligence for mitigating logistics impacting supply chain and security challenges is of utmost importance to Qatar, particularly with the encountered challenges due to the blockade. The skyrocketed penetration of AI in our daily lives affects the economy, supports smart work and operation, advances smart transportation, and develops smart optimization, improves predictive logistics, and enhances risk management. For instance, an intelligent solution, designed for an automated ship, that is capable of identifying fake Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) signals to avoid deceptions.

SUBMISSION

Please click here to register and to submit your idea. You can also use the following QR code:

You will receive an email from us if you are among the shortlisted participants. If so, you need to send at a later stage a report, using the above template, a presentation, and your bio (or the bios of the team). Participation in the AI national competition is free of charge. Any submission after the deadline will not be considered. Please, do not hesitate to contact us at AICompetition@qu.edu.qa