#GenZHack Day 2 — Final Products
Day Two of the GenZ Hack began almost instantaneously: opened once more by Elena Sinel; teens were raring to continue working on their solutions to the various political challenges that were introduced on Day One by a number of speakers.
After a quick briefing, teens reconvened at the main meeting area, and Elena and Lera delivered a Pitching Workshop, informing each of the teams of what they had to include in their presentations, how to present their ideas engagingly, and how to fully deliver their solutions within the strict three minute timeframe.
Teams continued to refine and develop their ideas during workshops that focused on UX design. Teens worked on creating various Marvel prototypes that would demonstrate how each of the solutions would work, developing minimum viable products, as well as developing concepts of the user experience and communicating to judges how it would work.
The majority of the day consisted of fine tuning each teams’ concepts, with occasional workshops. A notable workshop was held by Alejandro Saucedo, from The Institute of Ethical AI & ML, who delivered a specifically engaging ‘Guide to Responsible AI’. This added more food for thought for all the teams in regards to how they could potentially further develop their use of AI within their proposals.
Hours flew by like minutes, with all the teams working furiously to deliver a complete PowerPoint presentation by the strict deadline of 14:30pm. Despite a brief break to enjoy a very quick lunch, teams resigned to their rooms and began working on their pitches to the judges.
Welcomed and introduced by Elena Sinel and Sammy Hass, the judges took their places at the central meeting point at IPSoft. Teams, mentors and onlookers gathered to discover what these incredible teens had managed to create, which many companies take months to create, within a limited time frame of only two days.
The pitching then commenced. Polished and impressive pitches proceeded: all of the two days’ worth of work had been refined down to only 3 minutes, with 2 minutes of questions. Judges grilled each team, marking them in regards to teamwork, use of technology (specifically use of AI), pitching skills and viability.
Notable teams included HooDat, DRai, HabitAI and UVO. The main prize for this GenZ Hack was a visit including tech workshops at Quantum Black for the winning team; other prizes included tech mentoring, work experience at Immersion, team mentoring from IPSoft, work experience from CyberDUCK and a visit to the VR Arcade.
Overall, this GenZ Hack was an immense success. Teams produced something incredible with the purpose of changing the world through technology.
They’re ready for change. Are you?
By Jessica Georgois and Euan Cortes
