Baltic AI Hackathon 

I just recently had the pleasure of attending the Baltic AI Hackathon. It was definitely an adventure to say the least. Was it the best hackathon experience I have ever had, no, but it was definitely one that taught me a lot and I will remember for a long time to come. 

Day 1: 

Arriving to Riga day. Of course I was 2 mins late to arrive at the bus area. Which luckily for me was not a disaster as they were just setting up to have our photo taken (side note the cameraman was on the roof taking that photo, talk about anything for the good angle). I got another TalTech shirt, second in my collection now (I got 4 from Loughborough University so we shall see if I can beat that this year😂) and then we moved on to the bus. I sat with Kati, and we talked at least half the ride when everyone else was sleeping mid day. We also separately did some work, me with my various responsibilities and tasks and she was doing her homework. All in all it was a good bus ride, getting ice cream and candy with some lemonade not only made me nostalgic but also excited for the upcoming 2 days. Once we arrived we registered, got our massive lanyards and went straight to the basement to choose our sleeping spot. We found this backroom where there were some really old things, a few tables but it was the perfect spot otherwise, although it may have been a tight fit to sleep in with the 7 of us. Then after exploring every nook and cranny we left our stuff and went upstairs. There was a pre-event conference which we decided not to attend as we were already exhausted from the bus trip and needed to stretch a little. So with our stomachs empty we headed to the nearest shopping mall and whilst most of the others got Hesburger me and Kati decided to get some homemade style buffet food. Once full and happy, I got myself two bottles of kali or kvas in Russian (I believe in English it is called root beer). Then as the others had left us (we went to the bathroom and they went back to the hackathon) me and Kati headed home using a cool shortcut through the university campus. 

Inside the hackathon building we settled down and started working out our idea. We decided to make a platform in which if you give it your relevant business information it will give you a pitch deck back and some tips on how to pitch it. Then you could practise the pitch with it and it would rate your pitch and give suggestions to how to improve your public speaking. Now one single AI is not yet capable enough to do all of those things from creating entire presentations to analysing video to improve public speaking, as far as I know of course. Plus we had 3 days so for our MVP the features we focused on were 1- you give it your business information and it will give you a exact plan on how to structure your slides, what information to put on them and topics to discuss on said slides. 2- you write a pitch script from said slides and the AI will give you a rating out of 10 and ways how to improve the script. I believe for our MPV by the end of it we got it 80% working which in my opinion is an achievement in itself. We also decided that Anna and Pietro would be on the business side of things, I would do Business and Design, Kati would do Design and Tech and Illia would do Tech. And so we went off doing our various things. The first few hours went great, the tech people were watching videos and researching how to use the platforms, I after my call with my boyfriend made the logo and worked on various other things I can’t even remember anymore. Anna and Pietro were also hard at work putting together a survey and passing it around. Alas as time flew by, we had our first meeting with our team coach, she was absolutely amazing, and it became 4am. Me and Kati decided to go to sleep expecting that the others would soon follow. So we got ready as quietly as we could and tried to fall asleep on our various blankets and sleeping bags. I did not have a pillow either so I used a blanket my grandma had packed as a substitute. We ended up not being able to sleep in our cool dorm as it was decided by management to be off limits so we moved to a space on the floor in a corner and closed off the majority of the view with stacks and stacks of chairs creating a wall. The sleeping experience there was not great, at all. I woke up to every small sound, and let me tell you there were A LOT of sounds as people came in, chatted, left and someone even blew up their inflatable mattress at an ungodly hour of the night. 

Day 2: 

Alas it became 8am and we had to wake up for breakfast. Begrudgingly we woke and ate, the food was not of the best quality but it was edible and available so we ate. Once done we went back to our table to see the progress of how things were, finding out that Anna had only slept for around 30 minutes and that there seemed to be little progress from the night before other than a few plans that had been made. So me and Kati resumed work with the team and after meetings and meetings we were making some slow progress. This was the tech day where Illia made the site up and almost running and me and Kati made and trained our AI model of Llama 3. Pietro and Anna interviewed tons of people and collected loads of information. The mentors in this entire process were super helpful and lovely, and so was our team coach. As you can probably tell I was sufficiently tired by this time to not remember much at all about the day. All I do remember is that by the end of the day, around midnight we had a conflict between who would pitch, me or Anna. Since me and Kati decided to go to sleep at midnight (so we could function in the next morning) I yielded and let Anna pitch. Me and Kati thus went to the basement where we found an amazing corner to move our sleeping quarters to, it was the most secluded and on a sort of desk that they used to keep large shelves full of thesis and student papers. I wish I could say that night I slept like a princess but I was only able to fall asleep at around 4 and the rest of the time I just laid there. 

Day 3: 

Therefore we have now arrived at the last day, when we woke up at 8:30 this time. Went to breakfast and ate SUPER quickly as our mentor meeting was at 9, oups. Alas we made it and had a lovely chat with our team coach about hackathons in different countries. We also found the progress our team had made, which was quite a bit. They had also slept for around 4 hours which was superb. However we were no were close to done, as per usual. Me and Kati tried to do what we could to help, editing some videos for the pitch and helping make some slides. Yet the analysis of the interviews kept taking ages (even though me and Kati tried to inform them that it is not worth it, hackathons are about proof of  concept not concrete data) but alas they insisted it was needed therefore we waited with the knowledge we were not going to make the deadline. Then it became 12 (keep in mind the deadline is 13) and we were still getting ready. 12:30 we actually started filming the 5 minute pitch, which took 30 minutes. Then still needing to edit it as the slides did not screen record as we wanted them to. The final video was not a one take so needed editing too. So then (getting 30 minutes extra) did not help as we were still not finished by then. The organiser came to our table and refused to talk to anyone but me (fair enough since I was the person editing) but it was annoying as I was only 1 minute away from screen recording the slides with the timing. So yea, I ended up messing it up talking to him and we handed in only a screen recording of our slides instead of an actual pitch. But it is a hackathon so things do happen, all in a day’s work. 

Afterwards I went to pack, whilst walking down I noticed the other fully TalTech team all in a row on their inflated mattresses every single one on their phones. So I laughed and commented about how the generations have changed 😂 and from there we had a lovely conversation about various things from the hilarious inflation of the mattress event to my website and more. Kati arrived and we shared our plan of going to a cool matcha cafe we found and Teodor decided to come with us. So after packing up we went forth to our adventure. Took Bolt scooters and rode to the cafe! The tea there was absolutely fantastic, amazing, and beautiful. I had a delicious one that smelled like condensed milk, Teodor had a mix of matcha powder and Genmaicha which was such good quality and Kati had a delicious matcha latte. I also had the most wonderful melting in the mouth honey cake. Best place in Riga is definitely that cafe now! 20/10! Alas we got information that the final presentations were starting so we scurried back but not before we went to Lido to get lunch (because Kati was adamant that it was the one place she wanted to visit in Riga). We drove back in a Bolt Drive letting Teodor drive 😂 um well he can drive lets put it that way. We drove so fast that we missed our exit like 4 times and did around 3 laps. It was hilarious. Once we arrived we went in through the basement windows, got our stuff from downstairs and headed upstairs to the presentations. I wanted to watch most of them but we got so hungry we left half way through to eat in a separate room. Food was great. Once the presentations were done we got our stuff and went on a bus to go home. During the bus ride I connected to every person that was registered to the event, which was around 200. It took me hours doing it one by one but it was well worth the effort, I am now closer to my goal of 1000 connections 😍. Currently at 800. Arriving home my grandma had fallen asleep (she was meant to pick me up) so I walked home instead. I did walk Teodor home first because he was on the same path as my way home 😂 and we talked about fonts, despicable but wonderful things. A true love and hate relationship = fonts and typography. Alas I arrived home to find my grandma there, she had been bringing me something and fell asleep there 😂 so I said goodnight to her, and finished my assignment which was due the next day. I ended up falling asleep at like 3 am and slept in on the following day. 

Thus this concludes my adventure in Riga. It was, well it definitely was something, I don’t even know how to describe it 😂. Alas do keep in tune for my next adventure!