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Report on AI Ideathon and Hackathon (held on November 7, 2024)

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On Thursday, November 7, 2024, we held an AI Ideathon Hackathon in Digital Agency. About 40 people, including AI engineers from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, GovTech Digital Agency, Microsoft Japan, Google Cloud Japan, Amazon Web Services Japan, and ELYZA, as well as Tokyo employees, participated in the event. We developed a prototype of an application for improving administrative work, and the event was lively.

Contents

  1. Event Summary
  2. Event Characteristics
  3. Outcome of the event
  4. Future development

1. Event Overview

Event Purpose

Generative AI is developing rapidly. AI engineers recognize that they can quickly develop apps to improve administrative work. However, this recognition has not spread sufficiently in government officials. There is a gap in recognition between AI engineers and government officials about the use of AI. The purpose of this event is to bridge this gap in recognition. Digital Agency wants to demonstrate the efficiency of administrative work using AI. We aim to maintain and improve administrative services even amid a shortage of workers due to a declining population.

Organization of the event

At the event, development was carried out under the following two systems.

  1. Consultation counter
    • We received consultations from participating employees, such as "I want to improve this work with AI."
    • The content of the consultation was analyzed, development requirements were defined, and a simplified design was implemented.
    • I decided the development team in charge and connected the consulter with the development team.
  2. Prototype development team
    • It was organized for each cooperating company.
    • Based on the development pattern prepared in advance, the team in charge was determined.
    • Based on the requirements and development patterns provided by the consultation service, a prototype was developed jointly with the consulter.
    • Customized from the development pattern according to the request of the consulter.

A view of the venue of the

Event Flow

The event was held in the following sequence.

  1. Development of a prototype (10:00 to 15:00)
    • Staff members provided consultations on the use of AI.
    • An AI engineer built a prototype and ran a demo.
  2. Demonstration
    • Some of the prototypes we created were viewed and evaluated by commentators.

The six commentators are from Digital Agency (TAIRA Masaaki Minister for Digital Transformation, Vice-Minister for Digital Transformation, Chief Officer of Digital Agency, and Director-General), Tokyo Metropolitan Government (Vice Governor Manabu Miyasaka, Director of Digital Services), and GovTech Tokyo (Executive Director). The commentators made various comments.

Six commentators, including Minister for Digital Transformation TAIRA Masaaki of Digital Agency, are reviewing the prototype of the AI developed at the event. Commentators are seated side by side in the front of the venue, and participants are listening to the reviews.

2. Event Characteristics

This event has the following features compared to a typical hackathon.

  1. The person who brings the idea and the developer are divided.
  2. Developers may work on more than one subject.
  3. The developer does not know the theme in advance.
  4. There is no final ranking.

Based on these characteristics, the most important point is to consider development patterns in advance and prepare them so that they can be used for general purposes. This has enabled various prototype development (prototypes of business improvement applications).

The three government officials are seated side by side around the table, and are talking with the person in charge of the consultation counter sitting across from them. It seems that government officials is talking about the development of a prototype of AI as a business improvement, bringing in his daily worries.

3. Event Outcomes

The biggest achievement of this event was that the business improvement application was developed on the day and government officials (the person who brings the idea) could feel how it works. As a result, we were able to achieve the original purpose of bridging the perception gap between AI engineers and government officials.
In the short development time of five hours, 38 prototypes (prototypes of business improvement applications) were completed, and the developers were able to confirm the effectiveness of preparation for general-purpose use for each development pattern.

4. Future Developments

Our goals for the future are as follows.

  1. Enable employees who want to improve their work with AI to quickly benefit from AI.
  2. Make it easier for AI engineers to understand the needs of the field.
  3. Promote the growth of personnel who aim to improve the skills of AI engineers.

The ultimate goal is to build a system that can continuously utilize AI. This time, we have formed a development team for each business operator. In the future, we will consider a system in which development teams from multiple organizations can interact.
We also recognized the need to use AI in consultation desks and expand development patterns. We also recognized the importance of building a system to continuously improve our prototype so that it can be used after the event.

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