There is no need to know how to program or to be a scientist to contribute to cutting-edge research; all you need is a keen eye and the energy to push through the night. The Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, is hosting today the Técnico Nightjar Annotiathon, a marathon running from 6:00 PM this Friday until 7:30 AM Saturday, November 14, at the Técnico Innovation Center powered by Fidelidade. The event has around 250 confirmed participants, according to a press release.
According to the same source, organized by the Center for Natural Resources and Environment (CERENA) of the Instituto Superior Técnico, the challenge is simple but scientifically relevant: two-person teams compete to correctly annotate the largest possible number of bird images, marking the area where each bird is located (bounding box) and four anatomical points on the head, the center of each eye, the most curved part of the beak, and the top of the crown. The name evokes the nightjar (nightjar, in English), a nocturnal bird like the participants tonight.
The annotations will train an artificial intelligence model capable of automatically identifying these points, a tool that will be used in the DAEDALUS project, led by Ricardo Araújo, a professor at Técnico and a researcher at CERENA. Awarded with an ERC Consolidator Grant of two million euros, the first awarded to CERENA, the project studies the evolutionary origin of endothermy, the ability to maintain a stable body temperature, in the lineage linking dinosaurs to birds.
“To train an artificial intelligence model we need a large number of rigorously annotated examples, work that no research team can accomplish alone. With this challenge, anyone can make a real contribution to understanding how warm-blooded animals came about,” says Ricardo Araújo.
Participation is free and registrations are closed. Throughout the night participants will have free pizza to recharge their energy until dawn. All information is available here.
