Artificial Intelligence takes center stage in Lugano

Bluemed advisor is a chatbot using Artificial Intelligence created with the IBM Watson assistant aimed to give 24/7 instant assistance by diagnosing the patients’ problem following established protocols, reducing healthcare costs and waiting times. The solution can be applied as an alternative to Healthcare Insurance Telmed services, for triage in the context of Emergency Rooms or for data collection. The team received CHF5000 and direct access to the Fondazione AGIRE/CP Start-Up acceleration program 2018 to help them turn their project into a company.

Fifteen teams had pitched at the finals of Hack the City 2018. Almost 100 people attended the Southern Switzerland’s hackathon this year, 66 in presence and the rest remotely from home in Ticino, in Switzerland or abroad. What set this edition apart from the previous one’s is that 35% of the attendees came from the German speaking Switzerland in Lugano, which means that the event is getting more and more attention and recognition countrywide.

The 4th edition of the hackathon saw a quantitative, but also a qualitative boost. While there were, some projects based on blockchain or developed as mobile-oriented platforms, several teams focused on solving environmental, health and lifestyle problems using machine learning and AI technologies (many teams as Bluemed used the IBM cloud platform for developers by IBM, one of this year’s partners, which also had their mentors on place the whole time).

The second and the third prize went to teams with AI projects. The 2nd prize (CHF 2’500.-) has been awarded to team “TadaSana” (Diego Ulisse Pizzagalli, Madalina Mahrus, Sonia Pozzi, Fabio Verbosio) for their multidisciplinary prototype named ChariPose. ChairPose combines low cost sensors with artificial intelligence algorithms to help maintaining an ergonomic posture while sitting at the desk.

CHF 1’000 have been awarded to team “Spotliet” (Luigi Frunzio and Simone Masiero). Two university students who dealt with the fake news problem. Their project is a tool to detect if a news is biased or not. If biased, it is probably fake or at least impartial, if not, it is probably a valid news.