Try Azure services with a free Azure account. Read the complete set of rules<\/a><\/p>\n For questions, please see our FAQ or email cairmsr@microsoft.com<\/a><\/p>\n We received numerous submissions from around the world, and the judging panel had the challenging task to determine which projects best showed how Microsoft AI services are used to solve a difficult problem and provide insightful solutions.<\/p>\n After all projects were evaluated, the scores were so close among the top six finalists that the judges unanimously decided to create two 4th place awards, each with a prize amount of USD5000.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Uses Msft Cognitive Services – Face Recognition API to find an unidentified soldier from a large pool of identified soldiers, aggregated from historical databases.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sees what is in your photo, searches the internet, and provides relevant information and news on the subject.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n AI based materials characterization standard to estimate the properties of an engineering material (e.g. titanium, steel) using mobile phone.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Notify researchers at AUTH when a strong earthquake occurs. The message in the Azure Queue triggers an Azure Function which calls Microsoft Cognitive Services Speech API and creates an audio file which contains the details of the specific earthquake event in the Greek language.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Detects dangerous bacteria in water such as ecoli and cholera, as well as harmful particles<\/p>\n <\/p>\n AI based VideoBOT technology for personalized cricket highlights.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Cloud AI Research Challenge invited any researcher\u2014from students to academics to employees of public and private organizations\u2014to build AI applications on Microsoft AI services, using at least one of Microsoft\u2019s AI-supporting services, including Azure Machine Learning, Cognitive Services, Data Science VM, Batch AI, Bot Framework, and others. These services feature the latest advancements in developing for AI on Azure.<\/p>\n We invited teams of university researchers, students, and employees of public and private organizations to participate. Teams were to create a working, interactive software application, in any domain, as long as it was an intelligent system using data and the Microsoft AI platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n We asked for demonstrable applications that use the newly released set of powerful services that promote AI development through open source services on Microsoft Azure. Applicants were to demonstrate how difficult problems would be solved using the below services, but not limited to, where the solution contributes new insights to a field.<\/p>\n Submissions were to include a working, interactive software application<\/strong> that uses Microsoft AI services along with a video<\/strong> that comprehensively explains and demonstrates the application\u2019s features and functionality.<\/p>\n The deadline of April 15, 2018 has passed.<\/b><\/p>\n Details:<\/strong><\/p>\n All Applications must meet the following requirements:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The challenge is open to all disciplines and methodologies. We encourage the submission of applications from across disciplines. The above are, collectively, \u201cSubmitters.\u201d The following are not eligible for the Challenge:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Submit your video URL and Document in one email to cairmsr@microsoft.com<\/a> by April 15, 2018, midnight, to be considered for the prizes. (This deadline has passed.)<\/strong><\/p>\n *An affiliate is:\u00a0(a) an organization that is under common control, sharing a common majority or\u00a0controlling owner, or common management; or (b) an\u00a0organization that has a substantial ownership in, or is substantially owned by the other organization.<\/p>\n If you are affiliated with an academic institution and you apply before February 15, 2018 (This deadline has passed.)<\/strong>, the following are eligible to receive Azure credits:<\/p>\n Apply for Cloud AI resources through Azure credits by submitting your proposal to the online submission tool<\/a> before February 15, 2018. (This deadline has passed.)<\/strong><\/p>\n The Challenge is an initiative of the Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft is the sponsor and entity responsible for the Challenge and is contributing the funding.<\/p>\n If a team includes public sector employees and individuals not employed in the public sector, the Award will be awarded to a non-public sector employee team member. If a team includes only public sector employees, and team members are from multiple public sector organizations, the Award will be divided and awarded proportionally to each public sector organization represented on the team.<\/p>\n Microsoft defines a public sector organization as: Be aware that in certain countries and in certain industries, an individual who seems to work for a private entity may, in fact, be considered a Government Official.<\/p>\n In addition, the terms and conditions for the Microsoft AI services, and any other Microsoft product, service, tool or website that you use in connection with the Application, will continue to apply in accordance with their terms and, without limiting Section 11.b above, \u00a0the Released Parties will not have any liability for any failure of such products, services, tools or websites \u00a0in connection with the Application or Challenge.<\/p>\n If you have any questions or comments regarding this Challenge, please email us cairmsr@microsoft.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Please refer to the complete set of rules<\/a> for this program.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Teams can be a mix of individuals from academic and private\/public organizations.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Yes. Teams can be comprised of individuals that are all academics, all private\/public organizations, or a mix of both.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Visit Microsoft AI<\/a> to explore products and solutions and get access to free developer tools and resources.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Faculty, research staff members, graduate students, and postdocs are qualified to apply for Azure resources. Undergraduate and Masters students require a faculty supervisor to submit a proposal if it is part of an ongoing research program. Deadline to apply for resources is February 15, 2018. This deadline has passed.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Include information for all team members. The biography of the team lead is sufficient unless there are other researchers making significant contributions who you would like to highlight in the proposal.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t We are looking for projects that will advance the state of research by using Microsoft Cloud AI products. These projects may be individual scientific investigations or activities that support a research discipline. We are excited by original ideas. We are thrilled by projects that make cloud-based open source tools available to the community.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t We plan to complete the review process and notify winners within sixty (60) days of April 15, 2018. However, that date may change depending on the number of proposals we receive.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Microsoft Cloud AI<\/a> is a set of AI tools and services that help developers and researchers create applications that assist humanity and augment our capabilities. With the Azure platform and productivity services, you can create the next generation of applications that span an intelligent cloud as well as an intelligent edge powered by AI. AI Services is a collection of powerful APIs enables your apps to intelligently interpret the world and to naturally engage your users through vision, speech, language, and knowledge. Our free, easy-to-use, open-source, commercial-grade tools train deep-learning algorithms to learn like the human brain by helping you adopt programming languages and algorithms you already use to AI applications.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Email cairmsr@microsoft.com<\/a> with questions about the Cloud AI Research Challenge.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t You can engage with the community on the Cloud AI Gitter chat<\/a> or the MSDN Machine Learning Forum<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Yes, as long as one team member is an academic, that academic can apply for the Azure resources.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t The resources are available in all countries in which Azure is available. This list is continually growing. View a comprehensive country list and the full terms and conditions here<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t A simple acknowledgment is always appreciated. You can use the following: \u201cCloud computing resources were provided by Microsoft Azure for Research<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Your Microsoft account<\/a> (previously called Windows Live ID) is the combination of an email address and a password that you use to sign in to services like Outlook.com, Skype, OneDrive,\u00a0or Xbox LIVE. If you don\u2019t have a Microsoft account, it is easy to create one\u2014and it\u2019s free. You can even create a Microsoft account<\/a> that can be used by your entire research team to access your Azure resources.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Yes. By submitting an app to the challenge, you retain any intellectual property rights. However, Microsoft will have the right to feature all apps entered in the competition for promotional purposes. Please note that in order to be eligible for detailed evaluation, it is advantageous if your application code is made available via one of the approved open source licenses listed at http:\/\/opensource.org\/licenses<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Microsoft will have the right to publicly display your submission on the challenge website. They will also be allowed to publicize your name on the challenge website in connection with the submission and the challenge during the competition and for 36 months after its conclusion. For more information on publicity rights, please see the\u00a0complete set of rules<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":440553,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"msr-opportunity-type":[187426],"msr-region":[256048],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-program-audience":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"class_list":["post-437559","msr-academic-program","type-msr-academic-program","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","msr-opportunity-type-challenges","msr-region-global","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_description":"The Cloud AI Research Challenge invites any researcher\u2014from students to academics to employees of public and private organizations\u2014to build AI applications on Microsoft AI services, and the two best will be awarded USD25,000. This challenge asks you to use at least one of our AI-supporting services, including Azure Machine Learning, Cognitive Services, Data Science VM, Batch AI, Bot Framework, and others.","msr_social_media":[],"related-researchers":[],"tab-content":[{"id":0,"name":"About","content":" Uses Msft Cognitive Services - Face Recognition API to find an unidentified soldier from a large pool of identified soldiers, aggregated from historical databases.<\/p>\r\n \r\n Sees what is in your photo, searches the internet, and provides relevant information and news on the subject.<\/p>\r\n \r\n AI based materials characterization standard to estimate the properties of an engineering material (e.g. titanium, steel) using mobile phone.<\/p>\r\n \r\n Notify researchers at AUTH when a strong earthquake occurs. The message in the Azure Queue triggers an Azure Function which calls Microsoft Cognitive Services Speech API and creates an audio file which contains the details of the specific earthquake event in the Greek language.<\/p>\r\n \r\n Detects dangerous bacteria in water such as ecoli and cholera, as well as harmful particles<\/p>\r\n \r\n AI based VideoBOT technology for personalized cricket highlights.<\/p>\r\n \r\n
\nStart for free<\/a><\/p>\nChallenge rules<\/h3>\n
Contact us<\/h3>\n
Cloud AI Research Challenge<\/h2>\n
Congratulations to all the winners!<\/h2>\n
Grand Prize<\/h2>\n
Civil War Photo Sleuth<\/a>
\nDavid Thames, Vikram Mohanty, Dr. Kurt Luther | Virginia Tech<\/h3>\nGrand Prize<\/h2>\n
Pic2News<\/a>
\nSoner Sukru Altin, Nazire Aslan | Universitat Pompeu Fabra<\/h3>\n2nd Place<\/h2>\n
matNet<\/a>
\nHoracio Canales | Universitat de Barcelona<\/h3>\n3rd Place<\/h2>\n
Earthquake Notifications<\/a>
\nGeorge Spyrou, Paradisopoulou Parthena, Kementzetzidou Despoina, Areti Panou, Dimitrakopoulos Panagiotis | Validata Software Aristotle University of Thessaloniki<\/h3>\n4th Place<\/h2>\n
Clean Water AI<\/a>
\nPeter Ma, Adarsh Uppula | Clean Water AI, UC Berkeley<\/h3>\n4th Place<\/h2>\n
CricketBOT.ai<\/a>
\nRam Chellamuthu, Arjun Ganesan, Suresh Sivasankaran | California Communications, Inc<\/h3>\nWhat was the Cloud AI Research Challenge?<\/h3>\n
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Final Submissions<\/h2>\n
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Microsoft Research Cloud AI Research Challenge Complete Rules<\/h2>\n
Monetary awards<\/h3>\n
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Eligibility for the Cloud AI Research Challenge<\/h3>\n
\nIf you are not affiliated with an academic institution, your submission must meet one of the following requirements:<\/p>\n\n
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Eligibility for Azure resource credits<\/h2>\n
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Additional Terms and Conditions<\/h3>\n
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\nGovernment entities include sovereign states and all governmental entities as well as quasi-governmental entities, including but not limited to government corporations, state-owned or state-controlled enterprises, regional transportation authorities, or state owned universities or hospitals. For additional guidance, please consult the State Owned Entity Criteria<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
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Cloud AI Research Challenge FAQ<\/h2>\n
\n \tDoes my team have to be comprised of only academics or private\/public organizations? Or can it be a mix? <\/h4>\n
\n \tCan teams of academics and private\/public organizations apply? <\/h4>\n
\n \tHow does an organization get access to Azure resources, if our organization doesn\u2019t use Azure? <\/h4>\n
\n \tI am a student. Do I qualify for Azure resource credits? <\/h4>\n
\n \tIn the submission template document, do I need to include biographies of all team members or just the team lead? <\/h4>\n
\n \tWhat sort of projects are you looking for? <\/h4>\n
\n \tWhen will winners be notified? <\/h4>\n
\n \tWhat is Microsoft Cloud AI? <\/h4>\n
\n \tWho can I contact if I have questions about the challenge? <\/h4>\n
\n \tWhere can I seek clarification on technical issues with Cloud AI products? <\/h4>\n
\n \tIf a team is a mix of individuals from academics and private\/public, can a team member who is an academic apply for the Azure resources? <\/h4>\n
\n \tAre Azure resource credits available in all countries? <\/h4>\n
\n \tI would like to acknowledge the Azure resource contribution to my submission. How can I do this? <\/h4>\n
\n \tWhat is a Microsoft account? <\/h4>\n
\n \tDo I retain intellectual property ownership? <\/h4>\n
\n \tWhat else will you do with my submission? <\/h4>\n
Cloud AI Research Challenge<\/h2>\r\nWe received numerous submissions from around the world, and the judging panel had the challenging task to determine which projects best showed how Microsoft AI services are used to solve a difficult problem and provide insightful solutions.\r\n\r\nAfter all projects were evaluated, the scores were so close among the top six finalists that the judges unanimously decided to create two 4th place awards, each with a prize amount of USD5000.\r\n
Congratulations to all the winners!<\/h2>\r\n \r\n
Grand Prize<\/h2>\r\n
Civil War Photo Sleuth<\/a>\r\nDavid Thames, Vikram Mohanty, Dr. Kurt Luther | Virginia Tech<\/h3>\r\n
Grand Prize<\/h2>\r\n
Pic2News<\/a>\r\nSoner Sukru Altin, Nazire Aslan | Universitat Pompeu Fabra<\/h3>\r\n
2nd Place<\/h2>\r\n
matNet<\/a>\r\nHoracio Canales | Universitat de Barcelona<\/h3>\r\n
3rd Place<\/h2>\r\n
Earthquake Notifications<\/a>\r\nGeorge Spyrou, Paradisopoulou Parthena, Kementzetzidou Despoina, Areti Panou, Dimitrakopoulos Panagiotis | Validata Software Aristotle University of Thessaloniki<\/h3>\r\n
4th Place<\/h2>\r\n
Clean Water AI<\/a>\r\nPeter Ma, Adarsh Uppula | Clean Water AI, UC Berkeley<\/h3>\r\n
4th Place<\/h2>\r\n
CricketBOT.ai<\/a>\r\nRam Chellamuthu, Arjun Ganesan, Suresh Sivasankaran | California Communications, Inc<\/h3>\r\n
What was the Cloud AI Research Challenge?<\/h3>\r\nThe Cloud AI Research Challenge invited any researcher\u2014from students to academics to employees of public and private organizations\u2014to build AI applications on Microsoft AI services, using at least one of Microsoft\u2019s AI-supporting services, including Azure Machine Learning, Cognitive Services, Data Science VM, Batch AI, Bot Framework, and others. These services feature the latest advancements in developing for AI on Azure.\r\n\r\nWe invited teams of university researchers, students, and employees of public and private organizations to participate. Teams were to create a working, interactive software application, in any domain, as long as it was an intelligent system using data and the Microsoft AI platform<\/a>.\r\n\r\nWe asked for demonstrable applications that use the newly released set of powerful services that promote AI development through open source services on Microsoft Azure. Applicants were to demonstrate how difficult problems would be solved using the below services, but not limited to, where the solution contributes new insights to a field.\r\n
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Final Submissions<\/h2>\r\nThe deadline of April 15, 2018 has passed.<\/b>\r\n\r\nDetails:<\/strong>\r\n
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