For the first time ever: A joint team of students from two universities win DM in AI

The Danish National Championship in AI for students (DM in AI) is a week-long hackathon that challenges students’ skills in building and implementing AI models across various disciplines. Each year, the competition draws more talented participants from across the country, and this year was no exception – in fact, it featured one of the highest standards yet, with strong participation from Danish universities. However, the jury had no doubt that this year’s first prize and the title of Danish Champions in Artificial Intelligence should go to team PER (Performance-Enhancing Rundstykke), consisting of William Bille Meyling, Christian Steensbjerg Munk Jensen, Luis Galan, Elias Rasmussen Lolck, and Thor Vejen Eriksen.

From competitors to teammates

William, Christian, Luis, Elias, and Thor first met six years ago at a programming competition. Since then, they have both competed against and collaborated with each other in various national and international competitions in programming and cybersecurity. The team also participated in the Danish Championship in AI in 2023, where they secured an impressive second place. This year, they once again chose to combine their skills for the 2024 competition, making them the first winning team ever to be composed of students from both the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU).

At this year’s DM in AI, team PER demonstrated that collaboration across educational backgrounds and technical fields can lead to extraordinary results and that diversity in skills is a strength when tackling complex AI challenges.

“We were well-prepared this year with a solid technical setup that enabled us to develop our winning solutions. We also effectively divided the work during the competition. We didn’t get much sleep on the last day, but we managed to submit our solutions securely and accurately ahead of time,” says the winning team.

Complex cases require precision and early testing

In this year’s competition, the participants were challenged to solve three complex cases: Traffic Simulation, CT Inpainting, and Cell Classification. The PER team excelled on all fronts, delivering solutions that stood out for both their precision and creativity. Their ability to quickly adapt and identify the right strategies was crucial to their success:

“We have been reminded of the importance of good organisation, thorough testing, and early exploration of different strategies to identify the best approach. Participating in the Danish National Championship in AI has been an interesting and exciting experience. The competition is intense, testing whether you can rapidly develop three effective AI systems that perform well and are completely error-free. The challenge is to master every aspect of this process, but especially AI. We look forward to applying our experience in future projects and hope for opportunities to collaborate in the AI field,” says team PER.

Celebration at national conference

DM in AI offers an exceptional opportunity to honour innovation and talent in AI, and once again, the winners of the 2024 AI championship were celebrated at the national conference Danish Digitalization, Data Science, and AI (D3A) 2.0, organised by the Pioneer Centre for Artificial Intelligence, Danish Data Science Academy (DDSA), and Digital Research Centre Denmark (DIREC). The conference took place from 22-24 October, where the 2nd and 3rd place winners of this year’s DM in AI were also celebrated.

Planning for next year’s competition is already underway, with the goal of attracting even more talented participants from across the country.