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Miami Hack Week 2024: Parties, meetups, and the innovative tech that won over the judges

Anayansy Hernandez
Anayansy Hernandez
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By Anayansy Hernandez

It’s a wrap for Miami Hack Week 2024! This year’s event featured coding, happy hours, startup showcases, and meetups.  Here are a few highlights of the week-long event co-founded by Ja’dan Johnson:

The Winner: This year’s winners stunned the crowd with their project and age. The winning project was Lucy, an AI-powered robotic service bunny created by three high school students from Toronto, Canada, who wanted to create something they believed would help humanity the most.

Similar to a guide dog, Lucy walks in front of you and stops moving when you stop. Its ultrasonic sensor measures the distance between the person and the bunny. Lucy’s front camera communicates what it sees with its user and when asked what is around, the robot connects to ChatGPT-4 and generates a message that describes what it sees using vivid imagery.

The team – Fiona Fang, Jeremy Su and Michelle Yao [pictured above] – used Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 to test their product and made most of its parts using a TinkerCAD 3D printer. The idea for Lucy came about when the team saw there was a critical need for service animals. Out of the 20 million visually impaired people, only two percent of individuals work with guide dogs. The team believes Lucy can close this gap and be accessible to more people.

 “This was the most ambitious project and we did not know if we could execute it well. We’re honestly really proud of ourselves and glad we stepped out of our comfort zone and came to Miami to create something,” said Michelle Yao.

The runner-up: NeoSapiens [pictured below], a project inspired by combining AI and swarm intelligence to automate the problem-solving process came close to winning. Their system creates a group of domain-expert agents when given a problem to solve.  The problem is then broken down into smaller steps and each agent is responsible for solving their area of expertise.  “We’re looking at how we can explore these tools to solve tomorrow’s problems,” said Kye Gomez, a team member.

Startup Showcase

Developers and coders were not the only ones who got the limelight during this year’s event. At Miami Founder’s Demo Day, entrepreneurs had the opportunity to showcase their startups.

Hextronics, a Miami-based company showcased a unique concept- a drone battery swapping, charging, and launching station. According to their founder, Curtis Lary, with this technology drones can complete any mission and be ready to do it all over again in three minutes since they fully replace the batteries.

READ MORE IN REFRESH: Your drone in a box? Look no further than Hextronics

Natalie Barbu, a Miami-based founder, showcased Rella, an app designed to be a content creator’s assistant. Rella is the back office for creators and social media businesses. Users can automate campaigns, create contracts, share content for quick approval, track revenue, and auto-post across different platforms in the app.

Other companies featured included Manifest, Jobpixel, Kontigo, Wondera, STXT, and OpenHome.

Community Meetups           

It wouldn’t be Miami if there weren’t a party involved. Miami Hack Week collaborated with Tech Tuesdays Miami, an initiative created by The Source, to put together a networking event that welcomed, developers, tech enthusiasts, and Miami locals from non-technical backgrounds. The event showcased at Red Rooster Overtown highlighted the need to create more diversity and representation in Miami’s tech ecosystem.

READ MORE IN REFRESH: Ted Lucas to open hub in Miami to connect entrepreneurs, investors and community members

On Thursday, April 11, Miami Hack Week hosted a high-intensity workout class held by Keith Rabois, managing director of Khosla Ventures, at Barry’s. Attendees were met with high energy and motivation before they returned to their busy schedules. Miami Hack Week 2024, part of Miami Tech Week, radiated enthusiasm, collaboration, and innovation.

AND MORE SCENES FROM HACK WEEK EVENTS

READ MORE MIAMI TECH WEEK AND MONTH COVERAGE IN REFRESH MIAMI:

Anayansy Hernandez
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