MERIT Students Shine at BalticAIHack 2024 with AlumniCareerAI Solution
From September 4th to 6th, 2023, Riga, Latvia became a hotspot for innovation, with the BalticAIHack event attracting international talents eager to push the boundaries of GenAI. Among the participants was a team of students from the MERIT program (five girls from VILNIUS TECH study programs Engineering of Artificial Intelligence and Management of Artificial Intelligence Solutions). The MERIT study program members formed a team, which included all of them and additional member from another institution, representing business part. This team, working under the name “AlumniCareerAI”, tackled a crucial challenge in the education sector, blending their technical prowess and interdisciplinary knowledge to solve a problem faced by educational institutions worldwide: tracking alumni career outcomes.
The BalticAIHack hackathon, not only provided a platform for creative minds to showcase their AI skills but also fostered an environment for cross-border and interdisciplinary collaboration. The sponsorship and provided technologies from Meta and IBM brought the wide possibilities for the hackathon participants to test and build innovative solutions in the field of GenAI application. The event was a prime opportunity for MERIT students to put their skills to the test on a real-world problem. With participants from various countries and fields of expertise, it became a melting pot of ideas, knowledge, and technical skill sets.
The Challenge: Transforming Alumni Career Tracking with AI
The “AlumniCareerAI” team took on a significant challenge: creating an intelligent platform that helps educational institutions better track and understand the career trajectories of their alumni. Traditionally, universities and colleges have found it challenging to gather detailed, accurate, and up-to-date data on their graduates’ professional paths. Manual data collection methods, such as combing through LinkedIn profiles, are not only labor-intensive but also prone to errors and incomplete datasets. Institutions that lack insight into their alumni’s career development face difficulties evaluating the impact of their programs and adapting their curricula to better prepare future students for the job market.
The Solution: AlumniCareerAI – A Game-Changer for Career Insights
The AlumniCareerAI team designed an AI-powered platform aimed at automating the data collection and analysis process, providing institutions with comprehensive insights into alumni career outcomes. Here’s how their solution works:
1. Automated Data Collection:
Using web scraping techniques and API integrations, the platform scans LinkedIn profiles to gather essential information, such as job titles, industries, career progression, and even skillsets. This eliminates the need for manual data collection, which is often incomplete and laborious.
2. LLM-Driven Analytics:
At the core of the platform is a Large Language Model (LLM) engine that processes vast amounts of data and provides intuitive, flexible analysis. This enables institutions to perform natural language queries on the collected alumni data, gaining insights into career trajectories, job trends, average salaries, and even how alumni from specific programs compare to the broader market.
3. Impact Reports for Institutions:
The platform generates detailed, customizable reports, offering institutions valuable insights into how specific courses and programs are shaping alumni success. These reports can be used to:
- Demonstrate the value of educational offerings to prospective students and stakeholders.
- Refine and adapt course content to better align with the needs of the job market.
- Monitor industry trends based on alumni career data.
- Serve as contact finding platform in wider range of institutions.
- Provide functionality to recruiters to look for potential employees or/and invest in their preparation.
4. Job Market Insights for Graduates:
Beyond institutional benefits, AlumniCareerAI helps graduates too. The platform offers realistic job market insights by analyzing alumni career paths, highlighting trends and opportunities. Graduates can use this data to gain a clearer understanding of career options, market demand, and salary expectations based on real-world alumni experiences.
The video based pitch of the team is available for your evaluation.
MERIT Students’ Success
The AlumniCareerAI solution clearly defined the problem and architecture for its solution, adapted AI, LLM and data analytics to build up-to date and multiple source-based alumni portfolio, while utilized the data to give benefits for multiple target groups: undergraduates; university; alumni; industry; society. The team members brought diverse perspectives to the table, each drawing on their unique backgrounds in computer science, AI, data engineering, and business management.
The MERIT program itself is designed to build advanced digital skills and offer students a global perspective, requiring them to study in international environment and interact with peers from various cultural and academic backgrounds. This international experience, coupled with the interdisciplinary collaboration, gave the team a distinct edge at the BalticAIHack event. By combining cutting-edge AI technology with insights into real-world educational challenges, the team was able to deliver a solution that is both highly technical and deeply practical. As a result, the team AlumniCareerAI, among other 33 teams, won the public favourites nomination.
A Thrilling Experience for MERIT Students
The BalticAIHack in Riga proved to be a remarkable experience for the MERIT students. It showcased how AI can be applied to tackle pressing challenges in education, sustainability, social inclusion and public services. To participate in this event, for the MERIT students, it was not only a valuable learning experience but also a chance to bring their international education and interdisciplinary knowledge to the forefront of innovation. As they move forward, both their desire to upskill in advanced digital skills and gain new experience in such events like BalticAIHack, serve as a testament to MERIT project and Digital Europe program in general.