WSquare and Facebook’s HerTech Hackathon showcases women in AI with solutions for AgriTech & EdTech

Pune, 17 June : WSquare, India’s leading co-working and incubation centre dedicated to women hosted India’s first, women led AI Hackathon. Titled,HerTech Hackathon, this National initiative was organised in 4 cities – Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Gurugram and Pune from March to June 2019. The effort is in line to boost the participation of women in technology and widen the scope of opportunities being provided to them.

Only 22% of professionals who work in artificial intelligence across the globe are female, compared with 78% who are male, according to the World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report. The number of workers with AI skills grew 190% globally between 2015 and 2017, and for good reason — AI specialists are becoming some of the highest paid experts across tech. Yet if the gender gap in this speciality persists, it may widen the existing pay disparities between men and women in this industry and beyond.

To address this, WSquare in association with Facebook launched the hackathon at ThoughtWorks Pune addressing the problem statement that are crucial issues that women encounter across the country in their lives even today. Technology doesn’t differentiate, technology especially AI when thrust into the right hands can be used to make the lives, lifestyles, and careers of women in our country much much better. Participants came out with innovative solutions to the following problem statement.

1.Education: With rapid change in technologies, how can you implement AI to encourage blended learning that creates customised lessons based on the skill level of students?

2.Agriculture: How do you predict the demand and supply information for farmers to plan and reduce the shortage or wastage of resources?

“Participants spent 24 hours on coding, validating their ideas, networking followed by a Demo of their Prototype to a panel of VCs, entrepreneurs, and sponsors. A mentor from the business development side and a technology expert were assigned to the teams. “ – said Vandhana Ramanathan, Co-Founder & CEO of WSquare.

The 2-Day Hackathon focused on encouraging female students interested in a career in AI, women in technology returning back to work after a break and women-led tech startups. With over 170+ participants, the Top 40 teams presented to the Jury on finding solutions for problem statements addressed for women. Participants spent 24 hours on coding, validating their ideas with mentors from business development and technology experts followed by a Demo of their Prototype to a panel of VCs, entrepreneurs, and sponsors.

The Jury picked three winners

Team 1: Level up by Leena Bhandari

A platform that leverages on data analytics and business intelligence to maximise skill based results for identifying student’s skill set, summarising topics of weak areas, and evaluating based on assessments.

Team 2: The Tinker by Sneha Shinde

A platform that uses linear regression to predict the price and transparency of the demand-supply chain for stakeholders and ensures fairness in the operation.

Team 3: Estimators by Deepa Shetty

An AI platform that predicts the yield quality of a crop and early detection of any crop disease for better Price Realisation and Supply Forecasting.

The winners get access to Free Courses in AI & ML by One Fourth Labs, an IIT-M based Learning Labs, opportunityin ThoughtWorks Vapasi Initiative and mentorship opportunities with Facebook AI Team.

“Gender diversity and inclusion are an important part of every organization’s narrative. Given

the business’s growing interest and investment in AI, it’s important for us to ensure that any and all AI solutions should be created by as diverse a group as, the one that will benefit from it.Partnering with WSquare is in line with our consistent efforts to foster equal representation inthe technology space, and we are looking forward to hosting an engaging series of hackathonsin our offices.” say Tina Vinod, Head of Diversity and Inclusion, and Savita Hortikar, Head ofTalent Acquisition for ThoughtWorks in India as part of ThoughtWorks’ #TalkTechToHer campaign.

“As a strong advocate for Women in Tech and Return to Work for Women, WSquare in Partnership with Facebook presents HerTech Hackathon powered by ThoughtWorks as a belief to encourage women in pursuing a career in AI & Emerging Technology and to increase Women Tech Leaders in our Country” says Jinal Patel, Co-founder & COO WSquare.