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AI71 Awards Top Prize in Global Falcon Hackathon to the UAE's Sirocco Ventures

2024-09-24

• 5,000 hackathon participants worldwide got early access to AI71's new API Hub to experiment with globally ranked Falcon AI models
• Winning project, a high-performance, low-code chatbot builder, received $10,000 in cash and compute power to enable further development


Abu Dhabi-UAE: 24, September 2024 – AI71, a growing venture that develops productivity tools powered by the Technology Innovation Institute’s Falcon AI models, has awarded the top prize in its global Falcon Hackathon to the UAE’s Sirocco Ventures for creating a high-performance AI-powered platform that allows businesses to create customized chatbots with minimal coding.


The 10-day hackathon, co-hosted by lablab.ai, was designed to promote AI innovation and open-source AI. It was also an opportunity for nearly 5,000 participants to test the beta version of AI71’s new API Hub, which will provide pay-as-you go access to the globally ranked Falcon AI models for the first time, allowing coders without access to large amounts of compute power to experiment with Falcon.


Reda Nidhakou, the Acting CEO of VentureOne, AI71’s parent company, said, “The Falcon Hackathon was a key opportunity for us to drive innovation and to make Falcon accessible to even more people through exclusive first use of our API Hub. It was exciting to gather thousands of participants from around the world to develop creative solutions using Falcon, and to see AI being applied to so many different real-world use cases. This is our ultimate goal at AI71.”


Team Investiboard was named the first runner-up for their virtual investigation platform designed to help investigators and police streamline investigations and information gathering. They received $6,000 USD in cash and compute. EthiSecure.AI was the second runner-up with a platform that provides compliance, risk management, and real-time monitoring of LLM chatbots. They received $4,000 USD in cash and compute.


The winners were chosen from over 500 teams from 141 countries, who created a total of 132 different applications in the education, healthcare, legal and retail domains.


Ashmil Hussain, a Technology Partner at Sirocco Ventures, said, “We are thrilled to have won the Falcon Hackathon. With Raggenie, our aim was to build a user-friendly platform that simplifies the creation and deployment of conversational AI solutions. Falcon was an ideal choice for this project because of its flexibility and efficiency, which allowed us to integrate advanced AI capabilities without requiring extensive resources. It also aligns perfectly with our commitment to making AI more accessible across different industries.”