Overview:
Two Haitian tech organizations are launching the primary Ayiti AI Hackathon, from November 28 to 30, to coach and join younger innovators utilizing synthetic intelligence to create native options for Haiti’s challenges in sectors like training, well being, and agriculture. Profitable groups will obtain tech tools, software program licenses, Utility Programming Interface (API) credit, and entry to a community of mentors and professionals for continued collaboration.
PORT-AU-PRINCE — Haiti’s rising tech scene is getting extra increase this yr as Syntax Studio and Akademi, put together to host the primary Ayiti AI Hackathon, happening Nov. 28-30 in Port-au-Prince. The three-day competitors goals to equip younger builders with sensible AI expertise and encourage them to design revolutionary, native options to Haiti’s structural issues.
The 2 organizations are a part of a brand new technology of Haitian tech innovators which might be stepping as much as deal with the nation’s greatest challenges — from agriculture to training — by way of synthetic intelligence.
“We wished to create an area the place younger Haitian expertise might perceive, experiment with, and construct utilizing AI, whether or not fixing challenges in agriculture, healthcare, or training, primarily based on their very own realities,” Kenley Jean, founder and coordinator of Ayiti AI, mentioned to The Haitian Occasions.
Ayiti AI Hackathon comes as synthetic intelligence more and more shapes younger folks’s lives worldwide. Organizers, equivalent to Jean and Castelline Tilus, founding father of Akademi, say the hackathon will assist place Haitian builders as energetic contributors to technological innovation — difficult the concept that AI is restricted to main firms or elite analysis facilities.
“We wished to create an area the place younger Haitian expertise might perceive, experiment with, and construct utilizing AI, whether or not fixing challenges in agriculture, healthcare, or training, primarily based on their very own realities.”
The organizers of Ayiti AI Hackathon
Hackathons have developed past mere code‑sprints—they’re now world catalysts for youth innovation and social influence. Prior to now few years, worldwide competitions such because the Global AI Hackathon drew more than 1,300 individuals from over 80 international locations, 60 % from creating economies, all working to construct AI options tied to the United Nations Sustainable Growth Targets. On this context, the Ayiti AI Hackathon—set for Nov. 28‑30 in Port‑au‑Prince—marks a primary for Haiti. Quite than outsourcing expertise, Haiti positions younger Haitian builders as creators of house‑grown AI options to the nation’s urgent issues. By coaching individuals in native languages, providing entry to mentors, and concentrating on themes like training, well being and agriculture, organizers equivalent to Jean and Castelline Tilus, founding father of Akademi, say the hackathon will assist place Haitian builders as energetic contributors to technological innovation.
Constructing Haiti’s subsequent tech technology
In preparation for the occasion, individuals will attend 4 Saturdays of on-line coaching overlaying AI fundamentals and fashionable growth instruments — accessible even to novices. Throughout the hackathon, ten chosen groups will work from Port-au-Prince with entry to dependable web, electrical energy, meals, and mentors.
“No interruptions, no obligatory check-ins, simply targeted constructing time resulting in the ultimate pitch on Sunday afternoon,” says Jean, founding father of Syntax Studio. “It’s intense, however that’s the purpose: see what they will construct in 48 hours in an surroundings the place they will simply consider their code.”
Organizers hope the occasion will function a hub for AI democratization in Haiti, making certain that younger folks have entry to instruments and data usually concentrated in giant economies.
“The actual influence will come if these 48 hours grow to be the place to begin for steady observe — builders who proceed studying, coding, connecting, and maybe launching their very own tasks,” mentioned Jean.
Innovation rooted in Haitian realities
The concept was born from a easy conviction that synthetic intelligence shouldn’t be reserved for main technological powers. It should as a substitute be democratized so that everybody can entry and use it to work extra effectively and shortly in accordance with their wants. The organizers acknowledge that the nation is filled with vibrant younger minds, but many lack alternatives and platforms to specific themselves by way of know-how.
Members will design tasks beneath six themes: well being and well-being, generative AI, training, artwork and tradition, neighborhood options, and open innovation. Every theme displays points Haitians face every day, offering a framework for creativity grounded in native expertise.
Potential tasks embrace Creole-language medical assistants, good instruments for small companies, multilingual content material mills, and literacy platforms. Different concepts vary from konpa– and rara-inspired music mills to neighborhood platforms for catastrophe alerts and cultural preservation.
“No interruptions, no obligatory check-ins, simply targeted constructing time resulting in the ultimate pitch on Sunday afternoon,”
Kenley Jean, founding father of Syntax Studio.
“These themes should not theoretical. Each displays actual challenges and alternatives that Haitians face daily,” organizers mentioned. “The purpose is to point out that when used properly, AI can grow to be a sensible and concrete instrument, not only a stylish buzzword.”
Related initiatives, equivalent to these led by BANJ, have additionally sought to equip younger Haitians with digital and entrepreneurial expertise — signaling a rising ecosystem for know-how and innovation within the nation.
Rewards for innovation and collaboration
On Nov. 30, groups will current their prototypes to a jury of consultants from Haiti’s tech sector. Judges will consider every venture primarily based on innovation, performance, and presentation — specializing in real looking options with measurable influence.
“What we worth is an easy resolution that works higher than a fancy however unstable prototype, creativity and adaptation to the Haitian context, and the power to ship one thing concrete in 48 hours,” Jean mentioned.
Profitable groups will obtain tech tools, software program licenses, Utility Programming Interface (API) credit, and entry to a community of mentors and professionals for continued collaboration. Every participant will even be acknowledged throughout the Ayiti AI Hackathon neighborhood and its companions.
By this initiative, organizers hope to point out that know-how generally is a pressure for inclusion, creativity, and social transformation — pushed by the ingenuity of Haiti’s youth.
“We hope that some individuals depart with greater than a prototype, a transparent imaginative and prescient of what they will construct, fundamental AI expertise to proceed, and a community of friends to collaborate with after the occasion,” Jean mentioned.