Hello everyone, this is Karthik, the previous president of NYP AI. The time has come for me to write this final blog post. This marks the last blog from the current NYP AI Team, soon to be succeeded by Wen Bing and his team. This blog aims to remind our current excos and members what events we have worked on and also share some of the lessons we have learnt along the way so that the next team can set the bar even higher.
Highlights of the Year 🤩
So without further ado, let's talk about the 3 of our biggest events of the year:
PentaHacks 2023
This was the first event where we collaborated with the AI clubs from other schools such as Singapore Polytechnic, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, and more. We organised a hackathon in early March of 2023 and saw a very good turnout of over 200 participants. This first event was invaluable because it helped us expand our connection to other schools which will open up more doors for collaboration. It also showed us that we needed to partner with other organizations like AI Singapore which could help us with some of the resources which we needed to fund some of our events as well as help us to reach out to the larger student network and give them resources to learn more about AI.
AWS Deeprace Dash Hackathon 2023
This was the second event that we did, in the middle of July. AWS was actively promoting students to learn AI skills and they were also hosting this competition called the AWS nationwide deep racer hackathon. To help give students some hands-on experience for the hackathon they reached out to some AI interest groups in Singapore to get us to help out for the event. The event saw over 400 participants and was open to all students from secondary school, junior colleges and polytechnic and was held at the AI Singapore office. We also had the opportunity to showcase some of our club's projects, which helped increase awareness and interest in our club.
Panel Discussion with AI experts
Just a week after the Deep Racer hackathon, we hosted our AI panel discussion, our largest event to date, with over 500 participants. Thanks to AI Singapore and Ms. Teo Miow Ting, who helped connect us with industry professionals for the panel. The discussion covered topics like generative AI, opportunities for students in the field, and how to start learning about AI. We received excellent feedback from participants, indicating the event's success and impact.
Lessons Learnt 🤔
While we hosted many successful events, we also did have a few which were less successful. We found that our highly technical workshops attracted fewer participants compared to our beginner-friendly ones, despite covering cooler topics. As a result, we decided to focus on larger-scale events like those mentioned earlier which catered to all skill levels from novice to pro.
We also learned the importance of effective publicity. To improve this, we started putting out short Instagram posts explaining AI concepts in a simple manner, created a Linktree to share all our resources better (link here: https://linktr.ee/NYPAI), and even came out with our own T-shirt. Recognizing the need for a stronger brand identity, we’ve put more effort into marketing our workshops and events, ensuring we reach a broader audience and make a bigger impact.
Epilogue
All this stuff wouldn't have been possible without the NYP AI crew (Wei Jun, Jay, Jun Ming and Jing Khai) who worked tirelessly to make this happen. We are proud of what have built so far and how we were able to grow this community for AI enthusiasts to share new ideas and collaborate.
All the best to the next team, we hope you continue to grow this community to be even bigger than it currently is!
~ Sincerely
The NYP AI Team (23-24)
