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First: Report on AI Ideathon and Hackathons (held on November 7, 2024)

Published:

On Thursday, November 7, 2024, we held the "AI Ideathon Hackathon" in Digital Agency. In addition to Digital Agency staff, about 40 people, including AI engineers from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, GovTech Tokyo, Microsoft Japan, Google Cloud Japan, Amazon Web Services Japan, and ELYZA, participated in the event. We developed a prototype of an application for improving administrative work and it became a lively event.

Contents

  1. Event Summary
  2. Event Characteristics
  3. Outcome of the event
  4. Future Developments

1. Event Summary

Purpose of the event

Generative AI is developing rapidly. AI engineers recognize that they can quickly develop apps to improve administrative work. However, this awareness is not sufficiently widespread in government officials. There is a gap in awareness between AI engineers and government officials about the use of AI. The purpose of this event is to bridge this gap in awareness. Digital Agency wants to demonstrate the efficiency of administrative work using AI. It aims to maintain and improve administrative services even amid a shortage of workers due to a declining population.

Organization of the event

At the event, development was conducted under the following two systems.

  1. Consultation desk
    • We accepted consultations from participating employees, such as "I want to improve this work through AI."
    • We analyzed the content of the consultation, defined the development requirements, and implemented a simple design.
    • We decided the development team to be in charge and connected the consulter and the development team.
  2. Prototype development team
    • It was organized for each partner company.
    • Based on the development pattern prepared in advance, the team in charge was determined.
    • Based on the requirements and development patterns provided by the consulting service, a prototype was developed jointly with the consulting service provider.
    • Customized from the development pattern according to the request of the consulter.

The

Event Flow

The events were conducted according to the following flow.

  1. Development of prototype (10:00 to 15:00)
    • Staff provided consultations on the use of AI.
    • AI engineers created a prototype and demonstrated it.
  2. Demonstration
    • The commenter viewed and evaluated some of the prototypes we created.

There were six commentators: Digital Agency (TAIRA Masaaki Minister for Digital Transformation, Vice-Minister for Digital Transformation, Chief Officer of Digital Agency, Director-General), Tokyo Metropolitan Government (Vice Governor Manabu Miyasaka, Director of Digital Services), and GovTech Tokyo (Executive Director). There were various comments from the commentators.

Six people, including Minister for Digital Transformation TAIRA Masaaki of Digital Agency, serve as commentators and comment on AI prototypes developed at the event. The commentators are seated side by side in the front of the hall, and participants listen to the comments.

2. Event Characteristics

This event has the following characteristics compared to general hackathons.

  1. The people who bring the ideas and the developers are separated.
  2. Developers may be responsible for more than one subject.
  3. The developer does not know the theme in advance.
  4. There is no final ranking.

Based on these characteristics, the most important point is to consider the development pattern in advance and prepare it so that it can be used universally. This made it possible to develop various prototypes (prototypes of business improvement applications).

Three people from government officials sit side by side around a table and talk with the person in charge of the consultation desk sitting across from them. It is a scene where government officials brings in his daily troubles and talks about developing a prototype of AI as a business improvement.

3. Event Outcomes

The biggest achievement of this event was that a business improvement application was developed on the same day, and government officials (the person who brings the idea) could feel its operation, and as a result, the original purpose of bridging the perception gap between AI engineers and government officials was achieved.
In a short development time of 5 hours, 38 prototypes (work improvement application prototypes) were completed, and the developers confirmed that the preparation for general-purpose use was effective for each development pattern.

4. Future Development

Our future goals are as follows.

  1. Ensure that staff who wish to improve their work through AI can quickly benefit from AI.
  2. Make it easier for AI engineers to understand the needs of the field.
  3. Promote staff growth aimed at improving the skills of AI engineers.

The ultimate goal is to build a system that enables the sustainable use of AI. This time, we organized a development team for each company, and in the future, we will consider a system that allows development teams from multiple organizations to interact.
We also recognized the need to establish a AI for consultation services and to expand development patterns. We also recognized the need to build a system for continuous improvement so that the prototypes created can be used after the event.

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