2024 AI and Democracy Hackathon

On November 11, GMF Technology hosted, with support from The Rockefeller Foundation, an interdisciplinary AI and Democracy Hackathon at IPADE Business School in Mexico City. The event brought together approximately 40 participants from diverse industries to leverage AI as a tool for social good and to address critical challenges to democracy in the digital age.

In this high-energy, one-day event, eight teams, comprising data scientists, civil society representatives, academics, and newsroom professionals, worked to develop solution architectures and deliver three-to-five-minute pitches to a panel of judges in a shark-tank-style format.

The top three prototype winners were selected based on their desirability, innovation, feasibility, and impact of their tools:

1st Place: OlympiaAI – a tool for real-time support for digital violence response and reputation management

2nd Place: IsItBot – a solution for journalists that generates credibility scores for online profiles and helps assess digital content integrity

3rd Place: SQ2 – a fact-checking web app designed to combat AI-driven misinformation

Representatives from major technology companies, such as Google, IBM, Amazon, and AT&T; media organizations, such as CBC and Animal Político; and civil society groups, such as Verificado and WITNESS, shared their expertise and insights in the spirit of cross-sector collaboration. 

The hackathon’s judging panel comprised industry leaders including Maria Alejandra Molina (TV Azteca), Isabella Cota (International Consortium of Independent Journalists), Cristina Martínez Pinto (PIT Policy Lab), and Diego Halffter (Brainfood). GMF Board of Trustees Chairman Chris Schroeder offered a keynote introduction as the panel commenced its work. Mentors from IPADE Business School and La Universidad Iberoamericana helped teams refine their ideas and address theoretical and technical gaps.

The hackathon marked GMF Technology’s second AI and democracy initiative in the Mexican capital. The first was a May 2024 workshop that provided training to media companies in content authenticity technologies. Building on insights from that workshop, which highlighted the importance of cultural and geopolitical context, challenges in newsroom implementation, and gaps in the democratic technology landscape, the GMF hackathon offered participants a contextual framework and insight into market considerations for developing prototypes for AI-driven solutions to challenges such as misinformation, deepfakes, gendered digital violence, lack of digital literacy, and automated influence. 

GMF’s inaugural hackathon demonstrated AI’s power as a tool for democratic good in Latin American societies, empowered teams to create innovative solutions to safeguard democracy in the digital age, and provided a foundation for participants to commercialize their prototypes.