IT-team «Boiling points» of KBSU is in the top ten in the country and entered the project of the international hackathon ASI

The KBSU team entered the top ten among 70 Russian teams of city and university «Boiling Points» — participants in the second stage of the international data hackathon World AI & Data Challenge, organized by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) in conjunction with the World Bank.

The 48-hour hackathon took place remotely, online; the process in Russia was managed from Moscow.

Before the start of the project, the rector of KBSU, Yuri Altudov, addressed the words of parting words to the team of students, the preparation and maintenance of which is being carried out by the employees of the Department of SP NTI and OM (Boiling Point of KBSU). The successful results of the activities of the University Boiling Point of KBSU were highly noted by the director of projects of the center for digital development of the ASI Yana Kovalenko.

For two days, experts in the field of AI & Data became mentors for developers and shared their experience in implementing projects in the field of AI and data analysis, and also helped the participants to verify the hypotheses of solving problems and, if desired, would take the best guys to accompany them to finalize MVP solutions.

Platforms from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have already joined the data hackathons. Singapore, Bahrain and the CIS countries also showed interest. University, city «Boiling points» and international platforms.

The organizers offered IT and data specialists, using various data and artificial intelligence, to develop solutions for 30 problems, 8 of which are international. It is assumed that the new software products developed by the project participants will be used in the future when solving other tasks of a planetary scale.

The team of the IT-Tourist university was represented by Ilyas Niyazov, Samat Zhabelov, Asker Pshenokov, Karen Nalchadzhi, Azamat Gabaev.

University representatives said that the students chose a topic that is very relevant for Kabardino-Balkaria — «Calculation of statistics of visits to specially protected natural areas by tourists (SPNA), using the geodata of cellular operators.» The choice of such a difficult problem indicates that our guys are ambitious and have a good level of training. It should also be noted that specially protected natural areas are the most popular places to visit for ecotourists, however, for most PAs, the usual sources of obtaining statistical data are difficult, this is primarily due to a low level of digitalization and uncontrolled entry points.

A hackathon is a programming marathon, a kind of «brainstorming» during which an attempt is made to implement a project from idea to implementation, i.e. before creating a software product.

The second stage of the hackathon will last until August 31, 2020, when solutions will be uploaded for further verification. The best solutions will go to the finals with a prize fund and will be implemented in practice together with the task directors.

Consent to provide further support to the team of participants of the International project World Ai & Data Challenge was expressed by leading data processing specialists who will advise our students in solving the task.