Behind the scenes of Service NSW’s AI Hackathon

Starting with why

We started this journey by clearly articulating why we are undertaking it. We experienced the immense hype AI is generating currently and we wanted our teams to explore this technology deeply, yet safely and responsibly, so that they could cut through the hype and see for themselves the art of the possible with AI. 

We set the following four goals for the hackathon:

1. Customer service: Discover new ways to enhance the service experience for our customers by using AI.
2. Hands-on learning: Cut through the hype and genuinely experience and explore the true capabilities of AI first-hand.
3. Collaboration: Break-down silos and work together across the digital and non-digital teams.
4. Employee engagement: Provide dedicated time to our passionate people to learn and experiment in a safe environment.

Planning the hackathon

We knew that organising a hackathon for an organisation of our size and for a technology that is at the peak of its hype cycle wouldn’t be an easy feat.

Rough sketch

We carefully worked on arriving at realistic timelines by considering optimal preparation lead time, actual hackathon duration, communications, and an engagement strategy.

This helped us to quickly sketch out a rough overall plan for the event including potential training sessions and post-event activities. We decided that the hackathon will be a two-day event and finalised 6 and 7 March 2024 as the dates for the event. This gave us a nice tight yet comfortable lead-time of around 8 working weeks.

In-person event

In a hybrid post-pandemic world, we are acutely aware of the challenges people face in developing deep and meaningful connections. We believed that the delight of learning a new technology and then building something exciting with it together in-person would help immensely with this challenge. 

But there was a flip side. During the pandemic many of our colleagues had moved to regional NSW and we were deeply aware of the challenges it would present to them if they were required to be at our offices for two consecutive days. Our well-laid-out goals regarding employee engagement and collaboration helped us weigh the options for this trade-off, leading us to decide to host this event in person at our Sydney offices. 

Preparing for the hackathon

We recognised that AI technology is new for many people, and that they might feel lost without some hands-on training and practical experience

Hackathon announcement

We spread the word about our AI hackathon through our Slack channels and newsletter. We knew people might be busy or new to AI, so we offered a beginner-friendly session first. This session showed some cool things people are doing with AI and then explained what would be involved in the hackathon itself.  Registration opened after the session so people could sign up and form teams.

Immersion days

We recognised that AI technology is new for many people, and that they might feel lost without some hands-on training and practical experience. We partnered with one of our existing cloud technology providers, Amazon Web Services (AWS), for two ‘immersion days’. 

In these two days the participants learnt and created their own simple AI chatbots, learnt how to use no-code/low-code AI/ML services for predictions, forecasting, text analysis and computer vision. These sessions equipped them with the tools and knowledge they needed to bring their hackathon projects to life.

Judging excellence

To judge hackathon projects, we created clear judging criteria, focusing on customer value (25%), originality & innovation (25%), impact (20%), presentation (15%), and responsible and inclusive use of AI (15%).

Then, we assembled a diverse panel of judges with a mix of public and private sector leaders with both technical and business expertise. Our panel included members from Service NSW’s digital and non-digital divisions, AWS, and our Service NSW CEO Greg Wells came along as well to check out the ideas being generated by our teams and celebrate the event's success.

The main event

With all the planning and preparation done, we were ready to host the hackathon. When we closed the registrations, our initial expectations were pleasantly exceeded with 17 teams registered. Each team, composed of 5 to 8 individuals – engineers, designers, product managers and more – brought a wealth of talent and brilliant ideas to the table.

We reserved two floors of our offices for the event, ensuring that teams had ample space to collaborate. We created dedicated 'stations' for each team, where members could gather to turn their ideas into reality. On the first day, teams focused on ideation and active hacking, while on the second day teams finalised their projects, prepared presentations and demos, and the day concluded with the judging. We made sure to arrange sufficient technical support on these two days by having tech experts from our Cloud Operations team and the AWS team on-site.

Hackathon spirit

The energy and enthusiasm throughout the hackathon were electric; walking the floors, I could feel the creativity, collaboration, and a shared sense of purpose. We witnessed animated discussions, healthy rivalry, genuine teamwork, incredible collaboration, and compelling ideas coming to life.

The two days flew by, culminating in memorable and impactful presentations and demos from the 17 teams. The talent within the teams was on full display as they showcased their innovative solutions in creative ways. One team incorporated a full skit into their presentation, while some others created their own AI-generated avatars to stage captivating narratives!

Celebrating innovation

Choosing winners from such an impressive lineup was tremendously difficult for the judges. With nine categories of awards, we celebrated a wide range of achievements, from the most innovative to the people's choice. Here are our award categories: 'Most Innovative,' 'Most Impactful,' 'Most Responsible,' 'Most Original,' 'Best Presented,' 'People's Choice,' 'Second Runner-Up,' 'First Runner-Up,' and 'Overall Winner.'

All seventeen ideas were unique and aimed at solving customers’ real issues in innovative ways. I’d need multiple separate posts to capture the details of each of them.

But, to give you a taste, here are a few samples:

• ‘Mr Plow’: The first-place winner project focused on empowering the Service NSW service centre, middle office and contact centre teams to use AI to standardise, streamline and expedite customer digital issues with troubleshooting, resolution, and ticket creation processes.
• From conversations to customer story: The ‘Most Innovative’ award winner project focused on using AI to analyse customer conversations and capture richer details beyond basic forms. By understanding tone, sentiment, and qualitative aspects, the idea centred around developing deeper empathy with our customers to serve them better.
• AI Innovators: The ‘Most Responsible’ award winner project explored how customers could share their verifiable credentials securely and be instantly assessed and provided tailored products and services through an AI service assistant.

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