On April 11, 2025, the University of Hawai‘i (UH) announced the success of its Aloha Data: AI Hackathon for Hawai‘i’s Resilience, held from April 4 to 6 at UH Mānoa. This event featured over 35 students from three campuses (UH Mānoa, UH Hilo, and UH Maui College) engaging in hands-on experiences to tackle real-world challenges.
Students formed interdisciplinary teams, utilizing Google Cloud AI tools, including Vertex AI, to develop innovative solutions addressing topics such as climate data visualization and conversational AI.
The team ‘Untrained Parameters’ clinched first place with their creation, the Hawai‘i Climate Explorer, an interactive web app visualizing temperature and rainfall data sourced from the Hawai‘i Climate Data Portal. PhD students Federica Chiti and Dhvanil Desai from the Institute for Astronomy, along with team members from various UH departments, highlighted the significant impact of AI in addressing local climate challenges. ‘This was an incredible experience, showcasing the potential of large language models for multimodal applications,’ said Gerardo Rivera Tello, one of the team members.
The event recognized several other projects: ‘BruhMode’ secured the second position with GenEDU, an AI-powered educational content generator, while ‘Kani’ finished third with a climate-focused chatbot. Meanwhile, ‘TurtleyAwesome’ won the Visualization Challenge with ‘Sheldon the Turtle,’ a 3D AI-powered guide for climate data.
Prizes included MacBook laptops, iPads, AR glasses, and Google Cloud Platform credits, emphasizing the event’s commitment to fostering innovation among students.
Hosted by UH System Information Technology Services (ITS), the Hawai‘i Data Science Institute, and the Association for Computing Machinery Mānoa Student Chapter, the hackathon was led by the ITS Research Cyberinfrastructure team, with support from the National Science Foundation.
Sean Cleveland, Director of Research Cyberinfrastructure at UH ITS, remarked, ‘This hackathon allowed students to apply cutting-edge AI tools to real-world challenges impacting Hawai‘i.’
- 0 Comments
- Climate Resilience
- University of Hawaii