My Exciting Journey at the Google Cloud Vertex AI Hackathon 2023 🏆
Hello, all! 👋 I’m thrilled to share with you my fantastic experience at the Google Cloud Vertex AI Hackathon 2023. This Hackathon was an exclusive event held on the lablab.ai platform, where we got to play around with Google’s cutting-edge AI models for an adrenaline-filled weekend. So buckle up and join me on this roller coaster ride! 🎢
What’s this all about? 🧐
Held from July 7 to July 10, the Hackathon was a challenge for teams to whip up an MVP using Google Cloud Vertex AI, all in the pursuit of solving real-world problems. 🌍💡 And the best part? We only had three days to create a fully functional prototype! 🏗️
During this time, we received valuable insights from mentors, participated in workshops, and even had opportunities to network with other lablab.ai enthusiasts. 💼🤓
The technologies we got to work with were absolutely top-notch! We played with the Generative AI Studio 🎨, PaLM 2 🌴 (Google’s next-gen large language model), Chirp 🐦 (a universal speech-to-text model), Imagen by Vertex AI 🖼️ (an image generation feature), and Codey by Vertex AI 💻 (a text-to-code model).
Meet our team: “Metaverse Professional” ✌️
I’m proud to announce that our team, Metaverse Professional, consists of my talented colleague Elias Ordaz Sanchez and me, Enrique Gamboa. We put our heads together to create an innovative Chrome Extension named PaLM2 Tweet Creator. 🐦🛠️
What’s the Project About? 🕵️♂️
We developed a nifty Chrome Extension that can transform any selected text from any website into a tweet. 🌐💬 So, how does it work? Well, you simply select a piece of text from a website, and our extension springs into action. A context menu pops up, and once clicked, the magic begins! 🎩✨ The extension summarizes the selected text into a tweet in the backend using PaLM2. It’s that simple!
Project link 🔗: link
Github 😺: link
Chrome extension demo 📺:
Technology We’ve Used 🧪
Our project took advantage of Google’s PaLM 2 for text summarization alongside Twitter’s intent hyperlink. The result was a seamless, intuitive experience for the user, making the process of sharing summarized content on Twitter a breeze! 🌬️💨
Conclusion 🎬
At the moment of this writing, we have not gotten results from our application yet.
The Google Cloud Vertex AI Hackathon 2023 was not just an event but an enlightening journey, opening my eyes to the incredible potential of AI technologies.
I came away with a deep appreciation for Vertex AI, a versatile platform that makes AI models accessible, from the simplest to the most complex ones. It allows users to fine-tune these models to suit their unique needs, making it a robust AI toolbox. 🧰🤖
What excites me the most is the future of Vertex AI. As new models keep joining the hub, it’s set to become an even more comprehensive suite of AI solutions.
Our project gave us a chance to work with PaLM2. Comparing it with my previous experience with OpenAI API, I noticed some differences. The geographical limitation posed an initial challenge; my teammate in Mexico couldn’t access the API without VPNing to the US. 🌎🔒 Additionally, while OpenAI API can generate non-English tweets, Palm2 falls short here.
Despite these limitations, PaLM2 was instrumental in our project, and I’m eager to see its future iterations and improvements. I believe in the potential of PaLM2 to mature into a robust tool with more features and flexibility. 🚀
Special Thanks 🎉
I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge my amazing teammate, Elias Ordaz Sanchez. Like a JavaScript ninja, he handled the development of our Chrome extension with skill and precision. 🥷👨💻 His dedication and hard work were instrumental in turning our idea into reality.
There were many long hours and sleepless nights as we worked tirelessly over the weekend. 😴💪 But, Elias, my hat’s off to you for persevering through the tiredness and delivering a top-notch project. Your contribution was vital, and it made all the late nights totally worth it!
To wrap up, I can say that this experience was so much more than just a hackathon. It was a weekend of exploration, growth, collaboration, and lots of coding. Looking forward to many more such adventures! 🚀👨💻🎉
To Wrap Up 🎁
This journey was an unforgettable one. 😄 The hackathon was intense, challenging, and pushed us to our limits. But that’s what made it so exciting! 🌟💫 We got to learn, build, and connect, all while working with some truly fascinating tech. I can’t wait to see how these tools evolve and how they’ll continue to transform the world of AI!
The biggest takeaway, however, was the teamwork. 💪👥 Together, we created something amazing out of a simple idea, and it was an incredibly rewarding experience.
Until the next Hackathon, keep innovating, keep creating, and most importantly, keep having fun! 🥳
- Enrique 😎
