How will AI innovate businesses in the future?

student with Ai graphic in hands

 

This year’s Student/Employer South Event takes place on 13th March 2019, where Tech Industry Gold degree students from across the UK will present a tech concept to impress employers.  The competition details developed by IBM are now revealed.

From chatbots to robots building robots, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is due to revolutionise the workplace and has been predicted to impact 800 million jobs worldwide by 2030.

As the AI revolution is due to take place, your challenge is to explore AI technologies and develop a unique idea that will innovate and benefit a business of your choosing (UK based or not, it’s up to you!).  The aim is not to completely replace employees, but to utilise AI with the view of enabling employees to be more effective, smarter, and/or valuable.

First-year students:

Create an A1 poster to illustrate and explain your concept and form the basis of your presentation to the judges.

Make the poster as creative and memorable as possible – the judges will see many entries on the day to ensure your concept stands out.

Bring the poster with you on the day and keep it safe until your allotted presentation slot.

Talk to your university if you need help printing your poster. Most universities will have these facilities on site or your course leader can assist.

You will need to consider:

  • Who will benefit from your idea? Is it employees, the company, the customers, suppliers, or any other?
  • How the judging panel, who will act as the senior leadership team of the business of your choice, can exploit AI technologies.
  • How you’ve carried out your research to ensure your idea is new and will give your chosen business the competitive advantage.
  • The impact, the pros and cons, your ideas have on all your stakeholders.
  • The technology and implementation options you’ve considered.

Second, final years and MSci students:

Create a professional presentation and if possible demonstrate a simple prototype to showcase your concept to the judges.

You will need to consider:

  • Who will benefit from your idea? Is it employees, the company, the customers, suppliers, or any other?
  • How the judging panel, who will act as the senior leadership team of the business of your choice, can exploit AI technologies.
  • How you’ve carried out your research to ensure your idea is new and will give your chosen business the competitive advantage.
  • The impact, the pros and cons, your ideas have on all your stakeholders.
  • The technology and implementation options you’ve considered.
  • The concept in action through a simple/minimal prototype.
  • How you’ve tested and validated your concept with potential users.

Also, consider how you planned your team activities, roles and responsibilities. What went well, what didn’t go well and what you would do differently next time? You may be asked to reflect upon this in the Q&A.

Please bring your presentation on a USB stick. Don’t feel constrained to just a PowerPoint presentation, consider other creative ways to bring your concept and insights to life. There will be a laptop in the room with access to the Internet if you need it. Please avoid bringing your own laptop as this causes delays setting up.

Further reading:

What is Artificial Intelligence?

In computer science, artificial intelligence (AI), sometimes called machine intelligence, is intelligence demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural intelligence displayed by humans and other animals. Computer science defines AI research as the study of “intelligent agents”: any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximise its chance of successfully achieving its goals. Kaplan and Haenlein define AI as “a system’s ability to correctly interpret external data, to learn from such data, and to use those learnings to achieve specific goals and tasks through flexible adaptation”. Colloquially, the term “artificial intelligence” is applied when a machine mimics “cognitive” functions that humans associate with other human minds, such as “learning” and “problem-solving”.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence)

Additional sources:

https://www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/smart/uk-en/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43259906

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/technology-34593071/checking-into-a-hotel-staffed-by-robots

https://www.ibm.com/internet-of-things/solutions/industry-ai-assistant

https://www.ibm.com/industries/banking-financial-markets/front-office/chatbots-banking

Timings:

  • Presentation time: 7 mins (you will be stopped if you go over time).
  • Questions and answers from judges: 3 mins.
  • Immediate judge feedback and reflection: 5 mins.
  • Winners will be announced at the winners showcase at the end of the day.

Register your team:

To compete in this competition, you must be a fully registered team prior to the event.

Instructions for entering a team:

Get your teams together asap – we recommend no more than 6-8 participants and a minimum of 2 participants (see the small print for full team instructions)

To submit a team, you must register your team at [email protected] by midnight on Friday 1st March 2019 with the following information; names of (ideally) all of the participants, your university and a preferred lead email address, should we need to get in touch with your group.

N.B. We do not need your competition idea before the day. If you are having knock-out rounds at your university after this date, please just let us know that you will be submitting a team and provide us with the names when you can.

The small print (please read)

  • One team per university is permitted for the first year competition and two teams for the second/final year competition. It is recommended that you choose your final team(s) to represent your university on the day of the event by having ‘knock out rounds’ at your university before the event. The TP Degrees team can assist with this, so do contact us at [email protected] if you wish for us to be involved.
  • If your university offers both the ITMB and SEfB degrees, you may submit teams from each course. However, you may wish to merge your teams with both ITMB and SEfB to better access different skills.
  • IMPORTANT: Any teams that do not register before the day cannot be added to the schedule on the day of the event, so do ensure you let us know you are submitting a team beforehand.
  • If you’ve registered but can no longer take part, you must let us know before the day – this is important because it can impact on the day’s schedule.
The competition details are developed by IBM
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