Wharton Hack-AI-thon

Co-hosted by AI at Wharton, Analytics at Wharton, and the Wharton AI and Analytics Club

Reasons to Participate
How It Works
Prizes
Timeline

Providing students with hands-on opportunities to work on various use cases of AI

The Wharton Hack-AI-thon kicked off with an in-person event on Friday, April 5 and culminated with in-person student presentations on Friday, April 12. Meet the winning teams below!

Prompt Engineering Track Winning Teams

First Place

Detective GTP
Empowering Game Development with Customized Scripts

Ming Cao
Xinmei Feng
Youzhang He
Wanqi Hu
Haocheng Yuan

Second Place

Donna

Jingxuan Ren
Jahagirdar Seema
Kiran Uday
Rasya Ramesh

Third Place

Small Talk Master
How AI can help international students with more effective social interactions

Natalie Guo
Jamie Jin
Shirley Lin

Technical Track Winning Teams

First Place

AiMI Interview Better
Can we alleviate the pain points associated with interview preparation?

Antoine Crepin
Dan Letscher
Kevin Lin
Nick Navara
Laura Yin

Second Place

Moodshaker
Blend Your Mood – Custom Cocktails at a Click!

Zilin Ren
Pu Tan
Tianyi Wei
Jia Xu

Third Place

Personify
Months of Market Research in Minutes 

Tiana Wang
Margaret Zhu
Miyu Horiuchi
Ryoma Harris

How it Works

Who Is Eligible?
Penn and Wharton students, from undergrad to PhD, are eligible to participate. No prior AI experience is required.

Register
Register as a team by Sunday, March 31 at 11:59 p.m. ET. Each team should have 3-5 students currently enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania. Teams can register for one of two tracks:

  • Technical Track: Create an App Using the OpenAI API
    • Tools Provided: OpenAI API, Gradio, Hugging Face
  • Prompt Engineering Track: Innovate with Generative AI Using Prompt Engineering
    • Tools Provided: ChatGPT and similar AI platforms

There will be a total of 30 teams: 20 technical and 10 prompt engineering. Registration is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Attend the Kick-Off Event on April 5
Attend the keynote address by Professor Stefano Puntoni, Faculty Co-Director of AI at Wharton, followed by two exclusive workshops on OpenAI API use and prompt engineering. Lunch will be provided. During the event, teams will receive the instructions for their respective tracks as well as judging criteria.

On this day, teams will also receive a FREE DataCamp subscription and access to the Wharton Hack-AI-thon Slack Workspace for Hack-AI-thon communications.

Engineer Your Prompt or App
Spend the next six days engineering your prompt or building your app. Teams are required to submit the following through Cvent by Friday, April 12 at 9:30 a.m. ET:

  • Technical Track – presentation, code, documentation, and relevant files
  • Prompt Engineering Track – presentation, documentation, and relevant files

Present Your App or Prompt to a Panel of Judges on April 12
Deliver your final presentation in person to a panel of industry and faculty experts in AI. Judging criteria will be shared with teams during the kick-off event on April 5. Teams must be present to win.

Questions?
Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.

Prizes Per Team

1st Place Team
$1,000
2nd Place Team
$500
3rd Place Team
$250

Timeline

March 31: Teams must register by 11:59 p.m. ET
Friday, April 5: Hack-AI-thon Kick-Off Event
  • 10:00 – 10:15 AM ET: Keynote by Stefano Puntoni, Professor of Marketing, Faculty Co-Director, AI at Wharton
  • 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM ET: Exclusive workshops on OpenAI API use and prompt engineering
    • OpenAI API Programming Workshop: Master the OpenAI API
      This workshop is designed for Hack-AI-thon participants, offering a step-by-step guide to using the OpenAI API. Focusing on practical application, it covers everything from basic setup to advanced features, ensuring you can integrate AI into your Hack-AI-thon project. You’ll also learn how to use Gradio to create interactive, user-friendly interfaces, a valuable skill for developing your Hack-AI-thon app.  No prior experience with the OpenAI API or Gradio is required.
    • Prompt Engineering Workshop: Learn the nuances of effective communication with AI
      Tailored for Hack-AI-thon contenders, this workshop teaches the art of prompt engineering. You’ll learn how to craft effective prompts to get precise results from AI tools, enhancing the functionality and creativity of your Hack-AI-thon submission. This session includes hands-on practice and is perfect for applying AI in innovative ways during the Hack-AI-thon.
  • 12:00 PM ET: Hack-AI-thon kick-off and lunch
April 5 – April 12: Student teams work, office hours for questions
Friday, April 12:  Hack-AI-thon Presentations and Judging
  • 9:30 AM ET: Deadline for team materials (e.g. presentation, code, other resources) to be submitted
  • 10:00 – 11:30 AM ET: Team presentations 
  • 11:30 – 12:00 PM ET: Judges deliberation
  • 12:00 PM ET: Lunch
  • 12:30 – 12:45 PM ET: Winners announced, prizes awarded

Co-Hosts