HackTheHub®

The weekend is almost here! 😎 hope you’re all having a fantastic Friday!! Speaking of fantastic, let’s highlight some more of our lovely speakers, 🎤Luke McNeice ✨ “Luke is a technical leader with over 15 years experience working with a broad range of digital, electronic and mechanical technologies for enterprise and creative solutions including mobile, cloud, robotics, theme park and AI technologies. Previously: Kainos Group and Nortel Networks, Luke is Head of Engineering at Hamilton Robson, where he leads design and engineering teams to deliver digital and hardware solutions for global customers.” 🎤Louise Laughlin ✨ “Designer, drawer and dog mum based in Belfast. Passionate about creating meaningful experiences and effective solutions through design.” 🎤James Stocks ✨ “James has worked for almost 20 years in technology in Belfast including telephony, microscopy, cybersecurity and DevOps. He also has a keen interest in game development; having released several indie titles on XBox 360 and having contributed to the Northern Ireland-developed title "Surviving The Abyss".” 🎟️ Haven’t snagged your tickets yet? Fear not! You can always grab one here: https://lnkd.in/dWxCSwph 💝A huge thank you to our sponsors: Enso Recruitment, Gearset, Magnite, Signifyd, Cloudsmith, Ship Angel, SciLeads, Queen's University Belfast, United Tech and Allied Workers, DailyPay, Inc., HackTheHub® We are still looking for more sponsors, feel free to have a nosey here: https://lnkd.in/eacuNWQ3

Yesterday Una D'Arcy, Lucy Bell, Roksana Krogulec and I competed in our first "Ethical and Responsible AI" hackathon at PwC UK offices, hosted by HackTheHub®. We built on the 5 pillars of the ethical and responsible AI framework, and created our idea, F*AIry. A tale as old as time, people knew not to give the fairies their real name as their names were powerful seals and the Fairies were often bold with the data. (https://lnkd.in/exqmjdg8) So now days, why are we giving our name and other personal details away so easily? Big corporations are using our data to create biased, untested and non-transparent AI models to make important decisions. As with GDPR and the Digital Privacy Act, corporations who break these rules simply pay fines and do not alter or strive to better their behavior, as seen here with the same offender (Meta) (https://lnkd.in/eaWr--Rg) Now comes our solution; poison the data well! We created a browser extension that autofills data fields with generic random data to skew the models. The user has the opportunity to keep the fields they want to disclose and use the F*AIry extension to protect their privacy for everything else. Under ethical and responsible AI, we explored the privilege that is privacy, and the paradox privacy is for the rich only, even though defined as an inherent right. (https://lnkd.in/eRdsPtEQ) By forcing companies to source our data from trusted sources we can create and force ethical consumption and retrieval of fair and balanced data. We are planning to make this idea as a chrome extension very soon :) Thanks to Conor Graham and the team for an amazing hackathon with amazing ideas presented during the pitches.

Delighted to place 1st at the first Belfast Tech Week hackathon alongside Michelle Flinkfelt, Kevin Egan, and Antoinette M. 🏆 Embracing the hackathon theme of ethical generative AI, we sought to address the danger of cyber bullying and cyber grooming of children in online gaming. Building upon an idea from an AWS workshop, our solution consists of an AI powered Minecraft bot that can act as a companion but also a guardian for children playing Minecraft. Children are often reluctant to tell parents that they are experiencing online abuse, or in some cases don’t have parental figures that can support them. Our friendly bot will advise children and encourage them to seek support from a trusted adult. For server administrators, we also prototyped a helpful UI that will flag suspicious behaviour in chat logs. My advice to anyone taking part in a hackathon: - having a multi-disciplinarian team is a blessing 👩💼👩💻👩🎨👩🔬 - if you are using a free trial, check that your low code tool won’t block you when you go to publish your application 🤭 - arrive to the hackathon with some ideas 💡 - make sure your screen recording tool works if you’re planning on prerecording your demo 📽️ Thank you to HackTheHub® for running the event and thank you to PwC for letting us takeover one of your meeting rooms and keeping us fed. Also pictured: our spiritual fifth member and team namesake Danuta Danielsson Conor Graham Simon Bailie Daniel Murphy

Yesterday Una D'Arcy, Lucy Bell, Roksana Krogulec and I competed in our first "Ethical and Responsible AI" hackathon at PwC UK offices, hosted by HackTheHub®. We built on the 5 pillars of the ethical and responsible AI framework, and created our idea, F*AIry. A tale as old as time, people knew not to give the fairies their real name as their names were powerful seals and the Fairies were often bold with the data. (https://lnkd.in/exqmjdg8) So now days, why are we giving our name and other personal details away so easily? Big corporations are using our data to create biased, untested and non-transparent AI models to make important decisions. As with GDPR and the Digital Privacy Act, corporations who break these rules simply pay fines and do not alter or strive to better their behavior, as seen here with the same offender (Meta) (https://lnkd.in/eaWr--Rg) Now comes our solution; poison the data well! We created a browser extension that autofills data fields with generic random data to skew the models. The user has the opportunity to keep the fields they want to disclose and use the F*AIry extension to protect their privacy for everything else. Under ethical and responsible AI, we explored the privilege that is privacy, and the paradox privacy is for the rich only, even though defined as an inherent right. (https://lnkd.in/eRdsPtEQ) By forcing companies to source our data from trusted sources we can create and force ethical consumption and retrieval of fair and balanced data. We are planning to make this idea as a chrome extension very soon :) Thanks to Conor Graham and the team for an amazing hackathon with amazing ideas presented during the pitches.

At HackTheHub® Hackathon right now, and here is my wonderful team 💕 This is my third hackathon and I'm having a wonderful time.. as a designer!! Many people think that hackathons are for developers only, but as designers, we still bring a lot to the table. Having a prototype of the finished product, graphic design or being able to do research are a few very important things to include when you present your solution/ project. I highly recommend any designer to consider attending in future hackathons, it's a great experience and you learn so much in the process.