NASA Tournament Lab recently hosted an AI Assistants Challenge in partnership with DrivenData. With this challenge, NASA was seeking innovative approaches to help assess emerging capabilities in AI-based research assistants.
Keeping up with the latest scientific and technological breakthroughs and applying them to their missions is a considerable challenge for NASA researchers. They have to review research papers from a variety of disciplines, both within and outside of their fields. They also have to deal with different ways of reporting and writing in multiple disciplines. As a result, researchers spend significant time and energy reading papers that may not be useful or relevant.
Aman Ulla and Srinivas Alva, generative AI experts at ZS, participated in the NASA hackathon and won first prize, beating 292 other teams worldwide with their custom solution. To address the challenge NASA researchers face, the ZS team developed an interactive web application with a comprehensive set of features designed to streamline the research process and enhance efficiency. The winning ZS team named their custom solution NASAPalooza, a platform that helps people find gaps in research, make sense of multiple papers and explore research topics faster. Their platform also helps researchers identify mind maps that link related research topics and nested citations, giving them a deeper insight into how ideas are connected. Additionally, it provides Q&A sessions on papers and quick analysis of data sets to improve the research experience.
Where passion changes lives
We interviewed the winners to learn more about this fantastic achievement. Aman and Srinivas are extremely passionate about their work at ZS and the impact they’re able to create globally. Aman is a senior machine learning engineer and part of ZS’s Scaled AI team. Aman says, “I embarked on a transformative journey, where I honed my generative AI skills, collaborated with a dynamic team and contributed to innovative solutions in the realm of data-driven decision-making.”
Srinivas, a data scientist at ZS, specializes in the transformation of high-grade research into commercial solutions. He is instrumental in designing and implementing generative AI solutions for ZS clients and our technology products.
Aman and Srinivas believe their success is a testament to the culture of innovation and collaboration at ZS that empowers them to excel in endeavors aligned with their passions and values. Aman says, “At ZS, we are fortunate to have a supportive environment where you work alongside some of the brightest minds in technology. Our leaders, Prakash Prakash and Sravanth Ganta, provided us with technical guidance, which was instrumental in shaping our project and enhancing our skills.”
During the NASA hackathon, it was Aman and Srinivas’s zeal for innovation and problem-solving that played a pivotal role in their victory. Their perseverance and love for data-driven solutions drove them to successfully tackle the challenges. Srinivas added, “Our journey in developing the Palooza application for NASA’s hackathon has been nothing short of exhilarating. We were inspired by the potential to harness space-related data for healthcare applications and that was the driving force behind our success.”
Proud of their victory, the ZS duo say they will continue to pursue excellence in the world of technology and beyond.
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