Hackathons & Competitions
From international AI competitions to local hackathons, I've had the opportunity to challenge myself and collaborate with talented teams to create innovative solutions under pressure.
Kaggle: Image Classification Challenge
An international competition focused on developing high-accuracy image classification models for medical diagnostics, with over 5,000 teams participating globally.
The Challenge:
Building an accurate classification model for identifying 10 different types of skin lesions from dermoscopic images, with limited labeled data.
Our Solution:
Ensemble of EfficientNet models with custom augmentation pipeline and semi-supervised learning approach to leverage unlabeled data.
TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon
A 48-hour hackathon challenging teams to build innovative solutions addressing climate change and environmental sustainability.
The Challenge:
Creating a working prototype of a solution that uses AI to address a significant environmental challenge, with emphasis on real-world applicability.
Our Solution:
"EcoSense" - An AI-powered platform that uses satellite imagery and sensor data to detect and predict deforestation patterns in real-time.
"The team demonstrated exceptional technical skills and creative problem-solving under tight time constraints. Their solution shows genuine potential for real-world impact."
— Judges' Feedback
NeurIPS Reinforcement Learning Challenge
A research competition focused on developing sample-efficient reinforcement learning algorithms for complex control tasks.
The Challenge:
Training an RL agent to solve a robotic manipulation task with sparse rewards and minimum training samples, evaluated on unseen test environments.
Our Solution:
Hybrid approach combining model-based planning with off-policy learning, featuring a novel exploration strategy based on uncertainty estimation.
- 80% reduction in required training samples compared to baseline
- 93% success rate on test environments
- Algorithm published as workshop paper at NeurIPS
Kaggle: Time Series Forecasting
A competition focused on accurate long-term forecasting of multiple time series variables for energy consumption prediction.
The Challenge:
Predicting hourly energy consumption across multiple regions up to 7 days in advance, accounting for weather conditions and seasonal trends.
Our Solution:
Ensemble of Temporal Fusion Transformers and N-BEATS models with custom feature engineering for external variables and multi-horizon forecasting.
Microsoft AI Hackathon
A global hackathon challenging participants to create innovative AI solutions for healthcare using Microsoft Azure technologies.
The Challenge:
Developing an AI solution addressing accessibility challenges in healthcare, with emphasis on user-centered design and real-world impact.
Our Solution:
"MediTranslate" - A real-time medical conversation translator using NLP to facilitate patient-doctor communication across language barriers.
"MediTranslate demonstrates exceptional innovation by addressing a critical healthcare need with a technically sophisticated yet intuitive solution. The team's consideration of ethical implications and attention to cultural nuances sets this project apart."
— Microsoft Judges
ICLR Workshop Challenge: Robust ML
A research competition focused on developing machine learning models resistant to adversarial attacks and distribution shifts.
The Challenge:
Building classification models that maintain high accuracy when faced with adversarial examples and out-of-distribution inputs.
Our Solution:
Novel defensive distillation technique combined with adversarial training and ensemble diversity to create robust models with theoretical guarantees.
- 92% accuracy maintained against strong adversarial attacks
- 85% accuracy on out-of-distribution samples
- Selected for spotlight presentation at the workshop
Competition Achievements
Competitions
Podium Finishes
Team Projects
Countries
My Competition Philosophy
I approach competitions not just as challenges to win, but as opportunities for rapid growth, innovation under constraints, and collaborative learning. Each competition presents a unique opportunity to:
Rapid Innovation
Competitions force creative thinking and rapid iteration, leading to novel approaches that might not emerge in traditional development environments.
Collaborative Learning
Working with diverse teams exposes me to different perspectives, techniques, and approaches that enrich my own understanding and skillset.
Real-world Impact
Many competitions address meaningful challenges, creating opportunities to develop solutions with potential for significant positive impact.
Technical Growth
Each competition pushes me to master new tools, techniques, and domains, continuously expanding my expertise and capabilities.