USC CIC hosts watsonx workshop

The University of South Carolina College of Information and Communications (CIC) hosted 90 college and university students from across South Carolina at its Call for Code: IBM watsonx Workshop, held at USC’s main campus on Saturday, September 28.

In partnership with IBM, the CIC provided students the opportunity to enhance their AI expertise while solving a socially beneficial challenge question using the watsonx platform.

Participating students were charged with identifying and solving a specific issue to connect the public with vital services during the workshop. In teams of 10, with one hour to complete the challenge, students chose a variety of issues to work on, from increasing literacy in rural areas to healthcare access to social justice to storm response.

As part of this experience, student attendees were introduced to IBM’s Call for Code campus program and Global Challenge, and were given complimentary access to the IBM watsonx platform for the challenge. Nine teams competed for $17,500 in prizes – $10,000 for first place, $5,000 for second place and $2,500 for third place.

“Our objective for this event was to provide a statewide learning opportunity that would help students prepare for the impacts of artificial intelligence across industries,” said Tom Reichert, dean of the College of Information and Communications. “We were glad to have students from 13 institutions participate, some coming from as far as Charleston.”

The top three teams received prizes of $10,000 for first place, $5,000 for second place and $2,500 for third place.

Congratulations to the top three teams on their winning solutions:

• First Place – LibrAIry: “An app to help early education students develop a love of reading by creating AI stories with generative images and phonetic breakdown of the words.”
• Second Place – EasyEats: “The AI enhances user experience by addressing crucial factors such as nutritional quality and dietary restrictions while sticking within specified budgets and assisting with methods of transportation relative to where you live.”
• Third Place – SafeGuard.AI: “Our Safeguard.AI platform will connect the population impacted by natural disasters with essential resources to keep them safe before, during and after natural disasters.”

The experience was made possible by a lineup of sponsors including the University of South Carolina Office of the Provost, IBM, Call for Code, Chernoff Newman, Palmetto Citizens Federal Credit Union and Grubhub.

USC CIC sponsored the watsonx workshop in its ongoing effort to promote AI proficiency among CIC students and faculty and throughout the USC ecosystem and South Carolina. For more information about current AI initiatives at the College of Information and Communications, visit fearlesslyfirst.ai.

About the College

The College of Information and Communications is fearlessly first at adopting, teaching and investigating AI and other emerging information technologies, because it leans into the intersection of its two schools—information science and communication. As a result, CIC students gain a competitive workforce advantage by learning how to gather and analyze data, and to responsibly create and share content using the latest tools and practices.