Interesting ideas are bound to emerge when great minds come together, so there was no shortage of interesting ideas on October 2nd, when MongoDB’s Developer Relations team hosted our second-ever AI Build Together event at MongoDB.local London.
In some ways, the event is similar to a hackathon: a group of developers come together to solve a problem. But in other ways, the event is quite different. While hackathons normally take an entire day and involve intensive coding, the AI Build Together events are organized to take place over just a few hours and don’t involve any coding at all. Instead, it’s all based around discussion and ideation. For these reasons, MongoDB’s Developer Relations team likes to dub them “think-a-thons.â€
Our first AI Build Together event was held earlier this year at .local NYC. After seeing the energy in the room and the excitement from attendees, our Developer Relations team knew it wanted to host another one.
The .local London event’s fifty attendees—which included developers from numerous industries and leading AI innovators who served as mentors—came together to brainstorm and discuss AI-based solutions to common industry problems.
.local London AI Build Together attendees brainstorming AI solutions for the healthcare industry
The AI mentors included: Loghman Zadeh (gravity9), Ben Gutkovich (Superlinked), Jesse Martin (Hasura), Marlene Mhangami (Microsoft), Igor Alekseev (AWS), and John Willis and Patrick Debois (co-founders of DevOps).
Upon arrival, participants joined a workflow group best aligned with their industry and/or area of interest—AI for Education, AI for DevOps, AI for Healthcare, AI for Optimizing Travel, AI for Supply Chain, and AI for Productivity.
The AI for Productivity group collaborating on their workflow
The discussions were lively, and it was amazing to see how much energy these attendees brought to their discussions.
For example, the AI for Education workflow group vigorously discussed developing a personalized AI education coach to help students develop their educational plans and support them with career advice.
Meanwhile, the AI for Healthcare workflow group focused on the idea of creating an AI drive tool to provide personalized healthcare to patients and real-time insights to their providers.
The AI for Productivity team came up with a clever product that helps you read, digest, and identify the key aspects of long legal documents.
The AI for Optimizing Travel group seeking advice from AI mentor Marlene
A talented artist was also brought in to visualize each workflow group’s problem statements and potential solutions—literally and figuratively illustrating their innovative ideas.
Graphic recorder Maria Foulquié putting the final touches on the illustration
Final illustration documenting the 2024 MongoDB.local London AI Build Together event
All in all, our second time hosting this event was deemed a success by everyone involved.
“It was impressive to see how attendees, regardless of their technical background, found ways to contribute to complex AI solutions,†says Loghman Zadeh, AI Director at gravity9, who served as one of the event’s advisors. “Engaging with so many creative and forward-thinking individuals, all eager to push the boundaries of AI innovation was refreshing. The collaborative atmosphere fostered dynamic discussions and allowed participants to explore new ideas in a supportive environment.â€
If you’re interested in taking part in events like these—which offer a range of networking opportunities—there are three more MongoDB.local events slated for 2024—Sao Paulo, Paris, and Stockholm. Additionally, you can join your local MongoDB user group to learn from and connect with other MongoDB developers in your area.
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