By: Hari Rao

Rakathon', a portmanteau of Rakuten and hackathon, has been a yearly coding competition at Rakuten India since 2018! This year, the Rakathon is set to happen on 30 and 31 August 2024. In previous years, we have seen excellent participation from both within and outside Rakuten, including participants from outside India, as well.

 

We invite people from all walks of life to come innovate with us at Rakathon 2024! We have a range of exciting themes and sub-themes, all centered around the overarching theme of applying Generative AI to the Ecommerce, Fintech, Mobile, and AI Ops domains.

 

Why should one participate?

 

It’s a fantastic opportunity to characterize and solve problems in the dynamic and rapidly evolving fields of Ecommerce, Fintech, Mobile and AI Ops using Generative AI. You will also have a chance to work with publicly available data sets to create products that solve real-world issues. Participants will gain exposure to diverse perspectives on product and platform development, understand what it takes to create impactful and monetizable products, network with like-minded individuals and peers, and have the chance to bag amazing prizes.

 

Themes and sub-themes:

 

The overarching theme is application of Generative AI to solve real world problems in E-commerce, Fintech, Mobile and AI Ops domains.

Here are suggested sub-themes, in no order:

1. Generative AI-based shopping assistant for E-commerce, Fintech and Mobile (pre, during and post sales)
2. Hyper-personalization and prompt-based shopping experiences in E-commerce, Fintech, and Mobile leveraging
   Generative AI
3. Fraud detection iFraud detection in Fintech and Ads using Generative AIn Fintech and Ads using Generative AI
4. Leveraging Generative AI to solve problems within DevOps across domains
5. Using multiple LLM agents to solve problems in Ecommerce, Travel, Fintech, Mobile etc.
6. Augmented and virtual travel experiences for e-commerce travel
7. Understanding financial products using Generative AI in the fintech space

 

 

Below is a brief and indicative explanation for each sub-theme:

 

3a) Generative AI based shopping assistant (pre, during and post sales) for e-commerce, fintech, mobile

 

We are exploring innovative ways to enhance the user experience at various stages of the sales cycle – whether it’s before, during, or after a purchase decision. While AI-driven chatbots have been around for some time, the advent of Generative AI has opened possibilities for providing near-human interactions, especially in after-sales customer support. Some of the aspects to explore include creation of an ecommerce concierge experience, thereby, giving customers a differentiated and/or high-level service throughout their journey.

 

3b) Hyper personalization and prompt-based shopping experience in e-commerce, fintech, mobile leveraging Generative AI

 

Highly personalized experiences can be created by understanding user behavior and preferences. Currently, user experiences are largely driven by the available interfaces, which are usually the same for everyone, even if the content is customized. With the advent of Generative AI, user experiences can potentially be enhanced with custom interfaces, adaptive navigation etc. and thereby eliminating potential friction. There is potential for AI-generated content as well. We are looking at innovative ways to bring out hyper-personalization using Generative AI.

 

3c) Fraud detection in fintech, ads leveraging Generative AI

 

Fraud can occur in a various way, such as generating fake impressions or clicks to manipulate conversion funnels and create inconsistencies. Generative AI, with its adaptive learning abilities including capability to handle large data sets can potentially be used for anomaly detection. We are looking for innovative ways to solve fraud in the fintech and advertising spaces.

 

3d) Leveraging Generative AI to solve problems within DevOps

 

With a goal to speed up deployment cycles, improving accuracy, and limiting the amount of time development teams spend on maintenance tasks which again involves deployment, DevOps deals with improving productivity. We are seeking innovative solutions to optimize CI/CD pipelines, automate repetitive tasks, enhance quality assurance, generation of deployment scripts, predicting potential issues, and manage incidents using Generative AI.

 

3e) Using multiple LLM agents to solve problems in ecommerce, travel, fintech. mobile, media

 

We are exploring innovative ways to use multiple LLM agents to synergistically and effectively solve complex problems in the ecommerce, travel, fintech, and mobile spaces. By dividing tasks among multiple specialized agents, multi-agent LLMs can potentially work with better efficiency and productivity, maximizing individual outputs.

 

3f) Augmented and virtual travel experiences for e-commerce travel

 

Virtual travel experiences are gaining traction, allowing customers to explore destinations without the usual travel hassles. Augmented and virtual travel experiences include immersive virtual reality engagements and augmented reality apps that fuse digital content to enhance the travel experience. We are in the quest of solutions to make this a reality, or to enhance existing solutions in this space.

 

3g) Understanding financial products using Generative AI in the fintech space

 

It is well known that financial products and services are essential for attaining financial goals. However, understanding the nuances of each product can be challenging, especially when aiming to deploy them optimally for maximum returns. We welcome innovative ideas to better understand and optimally deploy financial products using Generative AI.

 

Data sets

 

We have curated data sets for the sub-themes described above. For pointers to the same, please see slide deck here:
https://www.hackerearth.com/challenges/hackathon/rakathon2024/custom-tab/webinar-resources/#webinar-resources. While this is indicative in nature, we welcome usage of other publicly available data sets as well. Note that this is not just a ML/AI modelling competition only, but one that involves problem solving and has wider business impact.

 

Registration and Idea submission

 

One can participate in the Rakathon 2024 by registering your team and submitting the idea at
https://www.hackerearth.com/challenges/hackathon/rakathon2024/, and it is open until 4 August 2024 (Sunday) midnight. While the details about the same is available on this website, few points to note which will be duly enforced include the following:

• Team size is 2 to 4 participants
• Teams/participants should clearly state the problem they are addressing in a few lines to a paragraph
• Submissions must summarize the solutions high-level overview, its business and/or societal impact, and its innovative aspects
• Documentation should be limited to a 1-2 page document, or a 5-7 slide deck

 

Selection and Evaluation criteria

 

Around August 15, 2024, we plan to publish the top 100 ideas selected from all the submissions. Participants whose ideas are selected will be invited to the Rakathon 2024 finale, which will be held on August 30 and 31 at Rakuten India office - Bangalore. The evaluation criteria for selecting the top 10 and eventually the top 3 wining ideas include:

• Novelty/Originality
• Practicality/Feasibility
• Usefulness/Desirability
• Business viability
• Platformization
• Privacy handling
• Choice of open source/data sets used
• The workings of the idea itself

Have a great day. Look forward to hearing your ideas and having fun with technology at Rakathon 2024!