Mackenzie is the Global Startup Evangelist at AWS. His days are spent traveling the globe to meet startups, share their stories, and connect engineering teams together. Every day there are a large number of startups launching on AWS across every imaginable industry. It’s Mackenzie’s mission to find stories of startups that are helping to improve the world and share these stories with a wide audience.
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Prior to joining AWS, Mackenzie was the Head of Technical Operations at Betterment, the world’s largest independent robo-advisor based in NYC which manages over $8B in assets. Mackenzie was a founding engineer and Head of Technical Operations at Oscar Health, an insurance startup also based in NYC, helping to grow the company to over 400+ employees.
The hackathon has now concluded; watch the recap video to explore the key highlights and insights from the event.
In our digital age, access to technology should be a universal right, not a privilege. However, countless individuals face barriers that create a digital divide, hindering their full participation. Generative AI presents a powerful opportunity to tear down those barriers and bridge the divide. This hackathon challenges innovators to harness generative AI's transformative capabilities and develop solutions that enable accessible, inclusive, and equitable digital experiences for all.
Join us in designing a future where generative AI empowers equitable access to areas like education, healthcare, entertainment, and customer service irrespective of abilities, age, socioeconomic status, education level, or geographic location. For example, generate interactive educational content tailored to diverse learning styles and needs, utilize real-time translation tools to dissolve language barriers, or facilitate easier access to healthcare services for the elderly and underserved populations. Together, we can forge a path towards a truly connected world, leaving no one behind.
The hackathon will be conducted in groups of up to five team members. We recommend identifying your team in advance of the event or individuals can register and be added to a team at the event.
- Propose innovative ideas that transcend technological barriers and address social inequalities, positively transforming lives through equitable digital experiences.
- Collaborate with industry leaders like AWS, AT&T, NVIDIA, Anthropic, and TM Forum to develop solutions for digital equity using cutting-edge generative AI technology.
- Identify frameworks and best practices for large-scale adoption of generative AI, addressing challenges like security, sustainability, and cost.
Top innovators forging digital equity with generative AI technology will be recognized and rewarded as follows:
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1st Place: $10,000 cash prize
2nd Place: $5,000 cash prize
3rd Place: $2,500 cash prize
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In addition, all teams will receive passes for TM Forum's Innovate Americas 24 – the inaugural AI & Automation event (Sep 24 - 25) where your participation will be promoted and the winners announced.Â
View the hackathon's terms and conditions for full details.
The event is ideal for builders with some fundamental knowledge of AWS, but no technical prerequisites are required! This hackathon is great for teams who wish to learn about the latest generative AI innovations with AWS, explore new technology, and anyone who wishes to level up their cloud-computing skills.
All applicants must register. Teams should comprise of a maximum of 5 people. If you are registering as an individual, we will match you with a suitable team before the event.
Kaniz is a visionary thinker and a pragmatic technologist, renowned for her ability to excel in uncharted territories with intuitive ease. In her unwavering pursuit of innovation, Kaniz has consistently evolved the state of the art toward the seemingly unthinkable, amassing 45+ patent grants & numerous papers/publications, while serving in technology leadership roles at world renowned organizations including Deutsche Telekom, VMware, Ericsson, Huawei, Ciena and Nortel.Â
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Kaniz is currently serving as Director of Technology at AWS Industries, with a mandate to transform comms with Cloud & AI for the long haul, while serving imminent needs of technology strategy, architecture & co-innovation, for its telco customers, worldwide.
Fred Devoir has spent the last 5 years developing the NVIDIA Telco Solution Architecture team. His 30+ year career spans the technology spectrum including HPC system architecture, artificial intelligence, satellite communications, data acquisition and control systems, and telecommunications. He has held key roles as Principal Architect, Sr. Engineer, and Global Director of Infrastructure and Engineering for several Fortune 500 companies in the Manufacturing, Aerospace, and Defense industries including Sverdrup, Jacobs Engineering, United States Department of Defense, National Air and Space Administration, Textron, and currently NVIDIA.
Dr. Austin currently manages a team of ~250 Data Science and developers in the Chief Data Office applying AI, machine learning and automation with applications across many areas of the company such as Fraud, Field Operations, Consumer, Security, Supply Chain, and Corporate functions. Â His team has developed innovative solutions for large scale routing problems, implemented closed loop AI classification systems and recommendation engines, operationalized computer vision, and improved process and people productivity by deploying an operating >3,000 BOTS company-wide.
With more than 29 years of experience, Dr. Austin has also held a variety of leadership and staff roles in running technology planning operations across South Florida, Puerto Rico and the Southeast.
Dr. Austin has chaired various industry technical standards committees, is the co-author on 5 books, has published more than 20 reviewed technical papers, been granted over 100 patents, and is on a number of advisory boards in academia. He holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland (summa cum laude), a doctor of philosophy degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech and is the recipient of the Sigma Xi Thesis Award for his research on various topics related to optimizing cellular systems. He enjoys running, cycling and boating and is based in Plano, Texas.
George is an experienced industry thought leader, telecoms professional and business manager with over 32 years of expertise in the IT sector in all aspects of software engineering. Through industry collaboration, George is leading the creation of industry-standard architectural and business transformation patterns, Open APIs, AI-enabled operational models, self-healing autonomous network services and data models that enable digital service providers to simplify the transformation of their IT and network estate, helping to drive the digital revolution that is happening across all industries today.
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