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Ecosystems, Finance & Health

EFH

DALL·E 2025-01-21 17.27.32 - A technology-focused artistic depiction of interconnected eco

APPLY NOW

EFH Innovation Sprint 

March 5th to 7th 2025, Nairobi, Kenya

Science has tackled some of the world’s biggest challenges. But for many so-called ‘wicked problems’, the pace at which scientific findings lead to real world solutions is exceedingly slow. The impacts of climate change and mass ecological degradation on people’s health and well-being are a case in point; they affect all aspects of natural and human systems, undermining and potentially reversing decades of progress in food security, health and economic development. How can we rapidly bring the best scientific evidence to those designing and funding solutions to these problems?


Ecosystems, Finance & Health (EFH) imagines a world in which people - whether they have or lack a scientific background - can access and leverage scientific data, knowledge and insights to make decisions for better public health and environmental outcomes. We want you to help us build this world. That is why we are organizing the first EFH Innovation Sprint - a hackathon to explore how recent advancements in generative artificial intelligence could be leveraged in creating tools that broaden access to high quality scientific evidence on the processes linking climate, biodiversity loss, and food systems to people’s health and wellbeing.

New ways of thinking and tackling important challenges often come from unexpected areas. The EFH Innovation Sprint participants will come from a diverse range of backgrounds at any level of expertise in data science. Participants will have a chance to receive mentorship from world leading experts at the frontiers of generative AI approaches such as LLMs and Agentic AI. Prizes (monetary rewards, technology and collaborative opportunities) will be offered to winning teams.

Image by Jeremy Bishop
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How to Apply & Elidgibility

To apply for consideration as a participant, please complete the form below. 

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To be eligible you must be:

  • Based in Kenya

  • Have expertise in data science, and previous experience with generative AI

I am based outside Nairobi, and would require travel and accommodation support
Yes
No
Do you have prior experience working with LLM APIs?
Yes, I have worked extensively with OpenAI, Hugging Face, or other LLM APIs.
Yes, but mostly at an experimental level.
No, but I am eager to learn.
Have you experimented with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) techniques?
Yes, I have built applications integrating RAG.
Yes, but I have only experimented in a research/project setting.
No, but I am familiar with the concept.
No, I am new to RAG.
Have you fine-tuned an LLM (e.g., OpenAI fine-tuning, LoRA, PEFT, or Hugging Face Trainer)?
Yes, I have fine-tuned LLMs for production applications.
Yes, I have fine-tuned LLMs in a research setting.
No, but I understand the fine-tuning process.
No, I have not worked with fine-tuning.
Which AI tools & platforms have you worked with?
How comfortable are you with deploying AI models as APIs or applications?
I have deployed AI models via APIs before (FastAPI, Flask, etc.).
I have deployed AI models using cloud platforms (Hugging Face Spaces, AWS, GCP, etc.).
I have experimented but not deployed a model in production.
No experience with deployment.
Other (Please specify)
Do you have the availability to fully participate in person in the hackathon from March 5-7, 2025?
Yes
No
By submitting this application, I confirm that I understand the hackathon objectives and commit to active participation if selected
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