Exotel has launched eighteen-day hackathon for algorithmic programmers, data scientists and machine learning enthusiasts to build a system that will be able to detect the emotions in conversations. The challenge will be open for 18 days which started from 25th September, 2015 and will continue till 12th October, 2015. It is an online hackathon and participants can take part from anywhere across India. It is team participation where each team can have maximum three members. The winning team will be awarded the prize money of Rs.3 lakh, runners-up team will get Rs.1 lakh and top 10 teams will get gift vouchers worth Rs.5,000/- each.
Shivakumar Ganesan, Co-Founder & CEO, Exotel, said, “Indians love to talk; voice still remains the most common communication medium. There are a million cool hacks that can be done with voice. Especially in the Indian context, with hundreds of languages and accents, this problem gets even more interesting and challenging. The hackathon will give a single platform to highly talented developers and coders to show their mettle.”
The hackathon aims to develop a system where emotions can be detected in a conversation. The emotion behind every voice has a frequency and an amplitude range, the idea is to devise a system that will be able to detect the emotions in conversations. The participants will have to use speech recognition algorithms and machine learning, to write a code that can take voice as an input and recognize the emotion behind it. The code, they submit, will be run across thousands of other voice samples. The algorithm with the most accurate results will be adjudged the winner.