Global content agency, Spafax has hosted its first 48-hour hackathon – a two-day event centered around Artificial Intelligence (AI). The hackathon was the first of a series of Spafax events designed to look at fresh ways to create innovations in the passenger experience.
Spafax’s development team was split into two groups and each challenged to create their own AI-powered ‘use case’ and digital product. Each team aimed to research and build a basic working prototype according to the brief provided first thing on day one of the event.
Kavin Joysury, software development manager at Spafax said, “Our first hackathon was designed to lay the foundation of some new concepts that we hope can really help to reimagine the passenger experience. After an intense 48 hours, we’re excited to reveal the two solutions built by our talented team of in- house developers and begin to look at how their ideas can be integrated into our existing platforms.”
Team 1 looked at building a conversational chatbot and wanted to see if adding AI to a traditional chatbot algorithm would result in a more “human” conversation. To achieve this, they applied a new AI service called Language Understanding Intelligence Service (LUIS), a machine learning-based service for building natural language understanding into apps, bots and IoT devices. Following LUIS integration, the team added Cognitive Services such as facial recognition to the chatbot. In one example, the bot prompts the user to upload an image of an actor and the bot is able to confirm and display movies on-board the flight featuring the actor.
Team 2 were tasked with looking at how AI services can be used to analyse video content. Using a service called Machine Learning, the team were able to train the AI platform to spot certain objects, scenarios or restricted content (ex: nudity or strong language). In one instance, the system was able to extract key content that a screening team would normally flag manually, including adult content or a plane crash scene.
Following a successful first hackathon, the tech and development team at Spafax will be looking at how these solutions can be integrated into its existing digital platforms in order to enhance both its client service workflows and the customer experience.
