Coding Girls: Hackathon at the University of Cagliari, today.
For its tenth anniversary, Coding Girls has strengthened the great educational alliance that promotes it with a tour of 11 universities in the Spring of 2024. There will be an increased focus on orientation and new subjects with coaches and university students helping the upper secondary school students.
Today’s appointment at the University of Cagliari, in collaboration with the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, will replicate the ChatSPOT: AI in Social Advertising hackathon promoted by Ital.IA Lab, the programme developed by the Fondazione Mondo Digitale and Microsoft to promote the opportunities provided by GenAI and the skills to use it in a sustainable and inclusive manner.
After the session in Rome that was held as part of RomeCup 2024, over 100 upper secondary school students in Sardinia (Liceo Classico Dettori, Liceo Scientifico Brotzu, Istituto Tecnico Economico Martini), guided by five tutors (master’s and doctoral students, as well as PhDs) from the University of Cagliari, will compete to develop new interactive stories with GenAI applications and a critical, ethical, and responsible approach.
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is rapidly emerging as one of the most fascinating and revolutionary fields of technology, one capable of profoundly changing the way we work, learn, and create. It is no longer just a simple automation of human activities, but an intelligence capable of emulating and expanding mankind's productive capability, generating original content with an unprecedented degree of realism and creativity. In a continuously and rapidly evolving scenario, knowing how to master technology is not enough. The human factor, which allows collaboration with the machine, is increasingly central. Everyone must contribute their own unique skills, including creative ones.
The alliance, led by the Fondazione Mondo Digitale, involves schools, families, universities, companies, and public and private organizations, with the patronage of the US Diplomatic Mission to Italy and the active collaboration of Microsoft, Fondazione Compagnia di SanPaolo and ING Italia. Moreover, the Vodafone Foundation and Roboteco Italargon have also joined the alliance this year. Thanks to this transversal alliance, after involving around 15 thousand female students in more than 30 Italian cities and over 33 universities in the last edition alone, the programme provides young people with the opportunity to meet role models from the academic and corporate worlds, to be inspired by their stories, and to discover new career opportunities and areas.
Following a welcome by the Deputy Rector of the University of Cagliari, Gianni Fenu, and the Director of External Relations and Philanthropies of Microsoft Italia, Chiara Mizzi, the challenge was launched, and the teams developed their proposals. The jury is composed by professors and researchers from the University of Cagliari: Maria Cristina Carrisi (Professor, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science), Stefano Federici (Researcher, Department of Pedagogy, Psychology, and Philosophy), Elisabetta Gola (Professor, Department of History, Philosophy, and Psychology, and Deputy Rector for Communications and Brand), and Andrea Pinna (Researcher, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science).
