Meet the first AI World Championship winners!

7,500 families. 200 ideas to change the world. 13 countries. 1 event. Thank you for being a part of it.

We’re fresh from celebrating the end of the first season of the AI Family Challenge at the AI World Championship in California, with 6 finalist families and 6 superstar coaches – and we want to share what we got up over to a long, action-packed weekend, as well as the AI Family Challenge results!

Who was there: Meet the AI Family Challenge Finalists and Coaches

Six finalist families and their coaches joined the Iridescent team in California to meet each other, tour tech companies, learn about AI, and share the ways they’re changing their communities with technology. Learn more about each project and their awards

AI World Championship Finalist Families

Junior Division Finalists

The Vega-Hidalgo Family
"Duckweed Vacuum Cleaner"

The Rana Family
"My Drawings Speak Up"

The Mayet Family
“Cavity Crusher"

Senior Division Finalists

The De La Paz Family
"Shoo!"

PiFive Team
"ScoutBot Water Guardian"

The Innovators Team
"Spiky! Bullying Detector”

Meet the Junior Division families and coaches

The Vega-Hidalgo Family from Bolivia created “Duckweed Vacuum Cleaner” a tool that uses a camera and an image recognition algorithm to identify and then remove the invasive duckweed from Lake Titicaca. Coached by Pamela Gonzales.
Social Impact Award, Junior Division

The Rana Family from Palestine created “My Drawings Speak Up”, a project using image recognition technology to analyze children’s drawings and notify an adult when a child is facing bullying. Coached by Hanaa Zakarna.
Inspiration Award, Junior Division; People’s Choice Award

The Mayet Family from Pakistan created “Cavity Crusher”– a tool whose algorithm uses AI to monitor the amount of time a child actually spends brushing their teeth and help parents keep track of their child’s oral health. Coached by Abdul Rauf.
Technology Award, Junior Division

Meet the Senior Division Teams and coaches

Team De La Paz from the United States created “Shoo”, a dog-deterrent tool that uses a live camera to collect images and pass them through an image recognition algorithm to determine if a dog is in a specified area. If an animal is present, the device emits a high pitched sound that deters it from staying. Coached by Sheila Buttle.
Technology Award, Senior Division

The Pifive Team from Spain created Scoutbot Waterguardian, a wearable device that helps keep kids safe while they swim by using image analysis to detect if a swimmer is at risk of drowning. Coached by Laura Monferrer.
Social Impact award, Senior Division

The Innovators Team from Uzbekistan created “Spiky! Bullying Detector” a mobile app that uses machine learning to analyze communications from a child to guess the probability of bullying. Spiky will send an alert to parents if action is needed. Coached by Saida Yusupova.
Inspiration Award, Senior Division

AI Family Challenge Finalist Family coaches and parents strike a pose

What did families do at the AI World Championship?

The day they arrived, families got to know each other at the welcome dinner where they played, ate, and started to learn about their fellow innovators. Over the next two days families toured Stanford and Facebook (where they practiced their pitches and got feedback and encouragement from Facebook employees), and visited redwood trees at a local park. Finally, on May 18, pitched their ideas live to an audience of supporters, tech employees, and judges at the first AI World Championship pitch night!

The AI Family Challenge finalists tour Facebook

Our panel of judges included Banu Nagasundaram (Marketing Manager in Intel’s AI Products Group), Allen Rush (Senior Fellow, Radeon Technologies Group at AMD), Michael Palmer (SVP Head of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning & Data at U.S. Bank), Gabriela González (Deputy Director and Operations Manager, Intel Foundation), Brad Neuman (Technical Director of AI, Planning & Navigation formerly at Anki), and Eva Ho (General Partner, Fika Ventures).

AI World Championship Judge Eva Ho talks to the Vega-Hidalgo family about their AI-based solution to a local invasive species problem.

We were also proud to welcome Jeff Dean, Google Senior Fellow and SVP for Google AI to the event for a Keynote address where he also announced that Iridescent will be receiving an additional $500,000 in funding from Google.org. The funds will go towards expanding the AI Family Challenge, which begins a second season in August. (If you want to join us for season 2, learn more here!)

Following the keynote, awards were announced and everyone celebrated the end of the first season of the AI Challenge, the hard work of families and coaches around the world, and this community that we’re building together!

Before saying goodbye the next morning, families told us what changes they would like to see in the program, and shared a bit of their culture with each other. (Check out this great dancing!)

We are so proud of all the families who participated in the AI Family Challenge this year and so grateful to the mentors, coaches, judges, and volunteers who made it all possible. Thank you for being part of this adventure with us.

The AI World Championship ended with a moment to reflect on the power of everyone’s ideas to change our communities and our world and how we can light up the future, together.