AWS HackDay is a series of events hosted in various cities across APAC by AWS. And this is exactly why BlazeClan wanted to prove its mettle. This is exactly what I was expecting it to be, and why not? Aren’t we the best lads in the alley when it comes to hacking? That is where BlazeClan’s #TeamSingapore and #TeamMalaysia registered and participated in one of the most gruelling hackathons in the APAC region.
Goal: The goal of the event is to use one of the AWS Machine Learning Services such as SageMaker, Reckognition, Lex, Poly and others, and solve the business case.
The Participating teams were evaluated based on 4 main verticals namely,
- Innovation approach – 30%
- Business impact -30 %
- Implementation – 20%
- User Experience – 20%
To note, the teams were selected from a pool of 100+ teams based on pre-participation criteria. A total of 24 Teams made it to the HackDay Participation list (of which 17 showed up).
Solution: We took up the idea of Automating Subtitling using AWS Transcribe Service and other supporting AWS services to create a Micro Services Architecture (inspired by the solution designed as part of CloudStream Solution).
On the #DDay: Vivek, Amit and myself were present at the venue for Registration at 7am. The schedule had us start Hacking from 8am until 8pm, that’s straight 12 hours.
The Time is Now: We started brainstorming the solution and implementing using the AWS Services. The solution was implemented by afternoon and we interviewed an AWS SA on site to use the same as a Demo. It was a challenge to complete the solution at the given time and then present and demo the solution to in time-boxed 5-minute slot. We addressed the various verticals as per the judging criteria. Below is the attached the workflow for quick reference.
Innovation: Lean solution with a cost-effective approach.
Business Impact: Faster time to market to keep up with the competitive market, cost-effective and automated solution.
Implementation: We were able to implement the solution and provide the demo for the same, as a matter of fact, 12 hours were sufficient enough to start from scratch and build accordingly.
User Experience: We wished to create a portal to allow users to upload and view the content. Though we did not accomplish this feature, we were able to showcase a user-friendly approach with the overall solution with the ease of workflow.
Learnings: Various possible solutions using Machine Learning Services to tackle day to day pain points. I think it was a good format to brainstorm on an idea for 12 hours at a stretch and to validate the same idea to succeed or fail fast and innovate further. The fail fast approach provides greater insights to redesign the solution and come out with an improved version.
Rewards: It was a nail-biting session when the winners were announced, and for a moment I did have a positive feeling about winning the hack day, and Team BlazeClan had secured the third spot. As takeaways, we had learnings and experiences as part of the day-long Hackathon. Hoping to participate for similar events to bring the best of BlazeClan.
The #BlazeClan Team at the AWS Hackdays KL
