Nikhil Agarwal from IIIT Bangalore & His Team Win AI in Fashion and Design Hackathon

BENGALURU:
Nikhil Agarwal from IIIT Bangalore along with his team members from IICD, Srishti Manipal Institute, LISAA and Strate was pronounced as the winners of AI in Fashion and Design Hackathon which was held as a part of AI in Fashion and Design (AIfaD) Conference by the Institut Français en Inde and the French Embassy in India recently.

The winners were rewarded with a sponsored trip to Paris by the Embassy of France in India and the French Institute in India to attend the summer school sponsored by Aivancity Paris Cachan. The International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT Bangalore) hosted and co-sponsored the event.

The Hackathon conducted at IIIT Bangalore on 2nd and 3rd April encouraged students across disciplines to work on projects that demonstrated the successful application of AI in several facets of fashion and design. Students from Design, Textile Engineering, Information Technology and Management Schools from India and France worked together to solve the current problems towards a sustainable fashion and design industry.

The Hackathon followed by a conference was held on April 4th and 5th 2022 at the Bangalore International Center. The 2-day AIfaD conference housed prominent personalities from tech and fashion sectors who delivered keynote sessions on the heritage of textile artforms, innovations by AI to combat challenges in forecasting trends, inventory control, waste management and its impact on creativity and design.

The conference also hosted a panel discussion around “E-commerce technology and trends”. Prof. Debarata Das, Director, IIIT Bangalore being one of the panelists put forth his views on the same, stating “As AI technologies find application in every sector and enterprise, it’s important to also address the issues of Ethics, Bias and Privacy in developing these solutions and have robust frameworks. IIIT Bangalore’s Center for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP) focuses on the policy challenges and the organizational demands made by technological innovation.

It seeks to provide a means to nurture and transform public policy through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by engaging with academic faculty and researchers, policy planners, political leaders and community representatives, technology vendors, public officials and civil society organizations. The platform provided a holistic view of AI in fashion that students could take away from and incorporate in their respective careers.”

The conference culminated in a hackathon final presentation of a hackathon hosted at IIIT Bangalore and co-sponsored by MINRO on the 2nd and 3rd of April.