What started in 2014 as an experiment to engage employees has turned into a strategic tradition to help Microsoft establish itself at the leading edge of innovation. And this year, the hottest player at the Microsoft Hackathon was artificial intelligence.
Organizers say the four-day event, which has become the world’s biggest private hackathon with more than 18,000 employee participants, provides the company with valuable insights into emerging trends and interests. The projects are representative of what’s happening both internally and within the industry as a whole. And the event has come to showcase bold new ideas, many of which make it into the marketplace by influencing company products and sometimes even leading to entirely new services.
Taken as a whole, this year’s group of hackers showed how quickly AI is becoming the fabric of how a new generation of technology services is delivered, with projects submitted for everything from self-driving wheelchairs to the prediction of traffic signal times.
Read more on the Microsoft News Center.
Interested in past Hackathon projects that have made their mark? Check out Seeing AI, Microsoft Kaizala and Microsoft Learning Tools.
