A team comprising faculty members from the College of Engineering and Computer Science at PSAU has secured the first position in an Artificial Intelligence Hackathon focusing on data integration in the medical field. The hackathon was organized by the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) in collaboration with Stanford University and took place from December 4 to 7, 2023, at the National Artificial Intelligence Center in Riyadh.
The winning team included Dr. Ilham Kareeri, the College's Deputy Dean for Female Students, Dr. Fatima Al-Musmoudi, a faculty member in the Information Systems department, and Mr. Mohammed Fouda, a graduate student pursuing a Master's degree in Applied Artificial Intelligence.
The hackathon challenge centered around building a machine learning and deep learning model using real healthcare data, with a focus on the impact of data integration from diverse datasets on the accuracy of prediction models.
The task was highly challenging, with the team competing against nine other teams comprised of IT and medical professionals from various parts of the Kingdom. The team distinguished itself by translating the required task into relevant questions, mapping out the road ahead, applying feature engineering and selection, conducting statistics, EDA (Exploratory Data Analysis), and subsequently implementing DL (Deep Learning) and ML (Machine Learning).
Dr. Ilham Kareeri, a member of the winning team, told the university's electronic newspaper that participating in the hackathon was an exceptional experience. It provided an opportunity to learn and engage with experts in both artificial intelligence and health fields.
She added that the team exerted great effort to achieve victory, successfully developing a machine learning model that accurately predicts Progression-Free Survival (PFS) based on multiple data sources (radiology, pathology, genomics, and clinical data).
She explained that the team faced significant challenges in developing the model, including the need to understand and carefully analyze complex datasets. However, the team overcame these challenges and developed a model that achieved accurate results.
Dr. Ilham Kareeri affirmed that the team will work on further developing the model and publishing it in the medical field to assist doctors in improving disease diagnosis and treatment.
This achievement is the result of the dedicated efforts made by Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University in the field of artificial intelligence, aiming to prepare a generation of national competencies qualified to work in this vital field. It also supports the Kingdom's economic and social development journey.
It is worth mentioning that the AI Hackathon for Medical Data Integration is part of SDAIA's ongoing efforts to build distinctive national capabilities in collaboration with leading educational institutions worldwide and enhance the contributions of nationals in advancing the Kingdom to the forefront of data and artificial intelligence-driven economies.
