The first BioLizard Innovation Hackathon, on 14th September, was a resounding success. Four teams of our expert “Lizards” took 24 hours to develop applications that use the power of chatbots based on large language models (LLMs) to tackle challenges commonly encountered in biotech.
An overarching aim of the hackathon was to assess whether the use of off-the-shelf LLM-based chatbots could enable BioLizard to innovate faster in the fields of biological research and drug discovery – by focusing on real-life use cases.
After a day of work, it was clear that our Lizards could very quickly bridge the gap between cutting-edge AI capabilities and practical applications, and rapidly translate generative AI into concrete, actionable outcomes. And, after demonstrations of the new applications and an internal vote, a winning team was named.
Congratulations to team members Alexander Koch, Paul Vauterin, Slava Mylka, Steff Taelman, Adriaan Sticker, and Andrea Argentini, who won the coveted Lizard Egg trophy! This team developed an AI-generated personalized newsletter to help scientists keep up with the latest research in their fields.
The work done by the four teams of Lizards over the 24 hours of the Innovation Hackathon will be put to use in the future. This will benefit both our clients as well as the Lizards themselves.
On top of developing four new LLM-based applications, the Lizards also learned some valuable lessons along the way.
One day is a short time period to direct the power of LLM-based chatbots into practical applications. The time constraint of the Innovation Hackathon meant that radical collaboration was stimulated, and the Lizards came out of the hackathon with new ideas for how to work together efficiently and effectively, to deliver proof-of-concept applications on short timelines.
In addition, by rising to the challenge of the Innovation Hackathon, the Lizards gained new knowledge on how to engage with LLM-based chatbots, and how to pair them with user-friendly interfaces. The skills learned over the course of the hackathon will undoubtedly benefit future projects undertaken by our Lizards.
Do you want to explore how LLM-based applications can be applied in your life sciences company? Reach out to BioLizard today to get started.
