Competitions and Projects

Competitions and Projects#

At case competitions and hackathons, I’ve had the opportunity to create solutions that examine business challenges and explore what new technology can achieve. Below are some of the highlights of my journey in competitions, including the problems tackled, solutions developed, and what I have learned.

Tip

Curious about the strategy, decks, and structure we used to win? Stay tuned for some upcoming posts about this topic.

PDF Content Retrieval via SMS#

Placements

  • TECHNATION Indigenous Positive Pathways Hackathon (Champion – Fall 2023)

  • Western AI Club’s AInnovation Challenge (Champion – Fall 2023)

Developing mental health tools for at-risk communities means building with empathy and precision. My team and I engineered an SMS-based chatbot that enables mental health support for Indigenous reserves without internet coverage. The solution was designed with safe, sensitive data retrieval processes, enabling it to operate in environments with limited infrastructure—a cell tower is all you need.

Note

This project focused on low-barrier access to mental health support, delivering information in a concise and safe wayin areas with extremely low bandwidth.

Audio/Video Transcription and Content Answering with Retrieval-Augmented Generation#

Placements

  • Microsoft AI in Accessibility Case Competition (Champion – Spring 2023)

During this competition, we built WriteNow, a lecture transcription tool powered by OpenAI Whisper and GPT-3.5 for students with accessibility needs. The product was launched with the goal of increasing engagement for students in large lecture settings who may need alternative learning formats. Over 750 users have since trialled the early version, and we aimed to scale it further across university campuses. Eventually, OpenAI launched their own add-ons with retrieval-augmented generation and transcription.

Key Challenge

How do you make education more accessible to everyone, regardless of their fluency with technology?

Project Management Plan for Startups#

Placements

  • Ontario Project Management Competition (Second Place – Spring 2023)

In this case competition, we crafted a governance plan for a start-up aiming to scale rapidly. The challenge was optimizing iteration speed while maintaining risk management and accountability structures. Using Linear, a project management tool, we mapped out an agile governance model that prioritized transparent stakeholder communication and iterative product development cycles. This competition ran at the same time as the Microsoft AI challenge, and really taught us how to work better as a team.

Note

The competition focused on scaling operations while mitigating risks: a classic project management puzzle.

Blind Hiring Platform with LLM Anonymization#

Placements

  • IBM Call for Code Case Competition (Champion – Fall 2022)

One of the most ambitious projects I’ve worked on. We proposed an applicant tracking system (ATS) that anonymizes résumés using LLMs to support inclusive blind hiring practices. The goal was to create an equitable hiring process that could be adopted by companies globally, addressing biases in recruitment at scale.

The system anonymized candidate information while providing intelligent parsing of skills and competencies that matched job descriptions. The impact was immediately clear: blind hiring could become mainstream or at least proof-of-conceptable with the right tooling. Politics aside, it may actually serve as a tool for finding better candidates… we hope.

Note

The product tackled inclusivity with LLM-based resumés parsing, demonstrating AI’s potential in equity-driven innovation. We ended up placing first globally!

Grocery Delivery/Pick-up Ordering via Text Messaging#

Placements

  • National Case Competition (Champion – Fall 2021)

In a community-focused challenge, my team and I reimagined how small grocery stores could operate digitally. We implemented an SMS-based ordering system that reduced operational costs by 30%. This product was intended to be a lifeline for small businesses, streamlining the way customers ordered groceries during the height of supply chain disruptions.

Scalability

The ‘SMS for conversational AI’ model we developed could be adapted to other rural or small-scale operations, providing a low-cost digital solution for various industries. We later explored this, delivering retrieval-augmented generation for mental health over SMS (see above).

Reflections#

My team has earned over $43,000 in prize money at these competitions, but more importantly, we now better understand how technology can address real-world problems.

I don’t think I would have ever had the chance to explore the fields of consulting and technology sales if it weren’t for such competitions: they taught me how to convincingly position technology solutions to prospective clients and buyers. I could not be more grateful towards the competition organizers and participants that make it all possible.

And of course, a special shoutout to all the beloved competition teammates that I have ever worked with. The real win was getting to know you. Thank you for putting up with me all these years! 😉 (If you’re an employer, please hire these guys <3)

  • Alice Yang

  • Ethan Wu

  • Joyce Liu

  • Sam Lu

  • Jeffrey Li

  • Sophia Ma

  • Grace Zhou

  • Aryan Khurana

  • Jarry Wu

  • Erin Hu

  • Noah Xu

  • Grace Tse

  • Alison Chen

  • Lena Tang

  • Emily Zhang

  • Sarah Huang

  • Claire Zhang

  • Louise Sun

  • Rickie Huang

Ping me if I forgot your name here haha.

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