News

• Applications are open: link
• The introductory lecture will be on March 9 at 14:30. It will take place via Zoom: link
• This year’s task: link
• The SLING workshop will be on Tuesday, March 10 at 14:00, for which registration is required (you will receive the link by email after registering for the competition)
• Unofficial results of the first round are known. Solutions: link
• Official results and qualification for the 2nd round have been published

Challenge

The main theme of this year’s competition is: Classification and segmentation of microbial colonies.

Vision and motivation

Automatic segmentation and classification of bacterial colonies would significantly contribute to the automation of work in microbiological laboratories. They differ in color, shape, size, texture, and growth rate. Imaging enables capturing all these data, which can later allow distinguishing between different types of microbes.

Awards

Silver RIS award is awarded to all who qualify for the second level. The top three teams receive the Gold RIS award.

Prize fund: 2000€

Amounts are stated in gross values.

Competition format

The competition is carried out in two rounds with an additional introductory seminar. At the introductory seminar, participants become familiar with the field and the clinical background of the problem. They learn fundamental concepts that serve as a basis for developing algorithms applicable to a realistic medical problem.

The competition continues with the first, pre-selection round, where participants prepare a proposal of their solution supported by simplified examples. Based on the submitted results, innovation, suitability, and efficiency of the idea are evaluated. The best participants of the first round advance to the second round, which serves as the national competition.

In the second round, participants prepare their solution to the problem using modern analytical technologies, depending on the selected challenge. The fulfillment of the defined objectives is evaluated by testing solutions on real data that participants did not have access to. The solution is evaluated by a committee selected from Slovenian experts.

The format of the competition is a so-called hackathon, where participants are faced with an open, realistic problem and compete in developing the best solution. They work in teams appropriate to the defined problem. They use their own equipment; in case of issues, each case is handled individually by the organizing committee, which can provide limited material resources at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana.

Funding

The competition is co-financed from public funds (ARIS P1-0389).