What is it?
HackaCon is a remote, asynchronous, FREE hackathon that challenges people to use AI to create an ultra-realistic "recording" of a phone-call between two specific speakers. Submissions will be judged by an expert panel, and some pretty decent prizes are on the cards (see below), not to mention certificates of participation, and of course, heaps of glory for topping the scoreboard.
Who can take part?
Pretty much anybody, anywhere, but note the special requirements for those under the age of 18. You can play as an individual or in teams, and you can also play as anonymously as you like. (Read more...)
Prizes
There are two prize categories:
Highest Ranked
1st place: £600 in Amazon vouchers
2nd place: £500 in Amazon vouchers
3rd place: £400 in Amazon vouchers
4th place: £300 in Amazon vouchers
5th place: £200 in Amazon vouchers
Special Category
5x £200 in Amazon vouchers
One Special Category prize is reserved for the highest ranked school submission, so if you know any schools or teachers who might be interested, do pass this on. (Yes, it’s possible for a school to win both the Special Category prize and a Highest Ranked prize!) The remaining four Special Category prizes will go to notable submissions that didn't score highly enough for a top five place in the Highest Ranked leaderboard, but that showed excellence in some way that the panel felt should be recognised.
And of course, as we mentioned above, there are certificates, challenge coins, prize bags, and most important of all, supreme hackathon glory all up for grabs. (Read more...)
Why take part?
HackaCon is all about revealing the state-of-the-art of ultra-realistic AI-generated dialogue, and perhaps most crucially, it’s about what's coming over the horizon as we speak. HackaCon will result in a dataset that complements existing audio deepfake challenges, and from this, we want to address questions such as: How far can people get when incentivised to produce a sample of this nature? How might these developments impact the integrity of evidence? Do existing deepfake detection tools work when faced with dialogue rather than just monologue? And many more questions besides. (Read more...)
How to take part
Head to the HackaCon website and register.
What's the timeline?
- 1 July: Reference samples released
- 1 August: Submission portal opens
- 30 September: Submission portal closes
- Early October: Judging
- Late October: Winners and rankings announced
- Early November: Prizes dispatched