IGNITION

A hackathon for multi-disciplinary Ai startup teams

 

Why another AI Hackathon?​

– The UK AI startups hold a combined valuation of over £200bn and raised £1.7bn investment in the first half of 2024. ​
– Unfortunately, only 3% of research-active academics go on to found companies, compared to 8% in comparable US institutions. ​
– UK, startups ‘founded exclusively by female entrepreneurs [….] raised just 1.2% (£6.4 billion) of the total capital invested by VCs.’ ​
– Worse, when considering AI investment by VCs, ‘in comparison, female-founded companies accounted for only 2.1% (173) of AI startup deals, and raised a mere 0.3% (£0.2 billion) in total VC investments in the space.’ ​

Audience

– PhD Students and Postdoctoral Researchers​
– Early Career Researchers (Lecturers)​
– Disciplines – any ​

Key Points

– It’s ok if you don’t have a team! You will be able to meet other like-minded researchers ​
– No need to be an expert in AI​
– Startup idea ideally borne out of research but not a requirement​

Roadmap

12th May: Hackathon Launch ​
– Theme: Responsible AI for Social Good (TBC)​
– Datasets confirmed​

​[3 week hackathon begins + Training Activities]​

​30th May: Teams submit their idea, link to video and demo detailing capabilities, showing how the tool would work​

​5th June: Notification to attend finals​

​12th June: Finals at UCL Centre for Digital Innovation

WATCH THE BRIEFING SESSION HERE >>

Expressions of Interest: Deadline 28th April​

Please scan the QR code to fill in the survey