Godspeed Winter of AI: Building the Future, Together

🎉 Announcing Godspeed's Winter of AI 🎉

Check the announcement video here

The CFP and applications page

🤝Who are we at Godspeed?

In spirit and intention, we at Godspeed are a cooperative tech collective. We work for a positive social and environmental impact, both within our members, and the world. We are on a mission to build a connected ecosystem of tech, information and talent, so that innovation and support is made equitably accessible to everyone globally. We are based out of Bhaarat (India) so far, and we collaborate remotely with care for each other. To us, building, learning and growing are of core essence.

🏛️On that fateful evening outside IITK’s PK Kelkar Library

On 18th October 2024, we received an interesting insight from IITK Programming Club coordinators.

Those days we had just stepped out in open with our 10X Academy initiative. We were conducting the first free bootcamp from IITK campus and online. While we were hoping to attract not only students but experienced professionals (for it was a reasonably advanced camp with a final project), we received mostly early beginners. Further the timings of the masterclasses were clashing with different college schedules.

The insight we received from The PClub coordinators was that instead of bootcamp based positioning to engage the developer community, a project (end goal) based positioning and approach should work out much better. “Take inspiration from Google Summer of Code” - they said. So we experimented with a hackathon at IITK, where students not only learned Godspeed but also built two very exciting projects over a mere weekend! This boosted the confidence in this direction.

We are at an early stage and it is easy and healthy to pivot fast on learnings.

And here we are, with the Winter of AI, our first program of (mostly) AI related projects. We believe these are awesome and much needed ideas worth building. We want to continue this initiative through the Spring, Summer, Autumn and the next winter. We hope to see able and driven innovators and problem solvers coming together for a worthy shared cause.

These projects are like starter templates solving some specific business or functional need. They are meant to empower individual users and teams to solve their problems fast, scalably and cost effectively.

☃️Enter: Winter of AI

Not AI Winter! We are very optimistic and excited about the AI advancement in recent times, and wish to contribute to the wave about to bring humanity to next level of innovation, development and evolution

Starting from the 6th of December, you can apply to be part of something amazing - the Winter of AI, a program in partnership with IIT-Kanpur’s Programming Club, designed to empower innovators, technologists, and AI enthusiasts to build impactful projects (PROJECT LIST) while receiving expert mentorship, grants and professional growth - and possibility of sponsored long term maintainership. This isn’t just another program—it’s an immersive journey into the world of cutting-edge AI, blending real-world problems.

Whether you want to refine your skills, tackle meaningful challenges, or bring your own groundbreaking ideas to life, Winter of AI provides the tools, mentorship, and platform to make it happen.

---

💡 Learn and Build: A Hands-On AI Experience

Winter of AI focuses on learning by doing. Participants will work on curated projects or pitch their own ideas, solving real-world challenges and building solutions that matter. This is an opportunity to enhance your skill set while contributing to innovations that push the boundaries of AI.

Curated Project Examples

Here are a few examples of projects you can work on (most are AI, but rest are cool and needed too!). You can find the full list here.

• Multi-Agent Sales Team Simulator: Design AI systems to optimize sales workflows and improve operational efficiency.

• Code Review Automation: Build tools that integrate with GitHub to provide structured code reviews and actionable feedback for Merge Requests.

• AI-Based Debugging: Create an intelligent debugger to analyze logs and codebases, simplifying troubleshooting and enhancing productivity.

• Team Productivity Reporting: Use Jira APIs and text-to-SQL to develop analytics dashboards that track key performance metrics like bug introduction rates and resolution times.

• Beckn Protocol Integration: Explore decentralized e-commerce and service discovery by developing solutions around the Beckn Protocol.

For those with unique ideas and startups in mind, you will be able to Pitch Your Own Project and see it come to life with the guidance of expert mentors and access to Godspeed’s extensive resources.

---

💻Project Categories

Participants can choose from three project categories based on complexity and duration:

Small Projects

• Objective: Short-term projects that enable participants to quickly deliver impactful results while developing foundational skills.

Large Projects

• Objective: More complex challenges requiring in-depth problem-solving and technical expertise to create innovative solutions.

Pitch Your Own Project

• Duration: Flexible, based on the project scope.

• Objective: Propose your own AI project. Submit a detailed proposal outlining the problem, solution, and potential impact. Selected projects will receive mentorship, resources, and platform support to turn your idea into reality.

🏅 Recognition and Rewards

We believe in recognizing and rewarding excellence. Here’s what’s in store for participants:

Grants and Certificates

• For Small Projects:

  • Each project will have a winner who will receive INR 5000 as the winning amount.

  • There will be a professional review on your Godspeed profile against work done and demonstrated (good for professional recognition. Much more credible for employer to hire you, than just a mention in resume)

  • Every successful project submission will earn a participation and completion certificate along with exclusive Godspeed goodies.

• For Large Projects:

  • Each project will have a winning participant or team who will receive INR 30,000 as the winning prize.

  • Every successful project submission will earn a participation and completion certificate along with exclusive Godspeed goodies.

  • Maintenance Rewards: Winning participants or teams can receive INR 5000/month for maintaining the project if they agree to and successfully meet the maintenance requirements.

  • Revenue Sharing Opportunities: If the project goes to market and generates revenue, the winning participant or team will be eligible for revenue sharing as a marketplace partner (T&Cs to depend on the context).

This structure ensures that participants not only gain recognition but also benefit financially from their contributions, with long-term opportunities for growth.

📝 Proposal Submission Guidelines

To participate in Godspeed's Winter of AI, individuals or teams must submit a detailed project proposal for the projects of their interest. Here's what to include in your application:

• Project Proposal: Outline the problem you aim to solve, your proposed solution, technical approach, and the potential impact of your project. Bring in your depth of thinking and research into this document with optional video.

• In your proposal there should be a README which outlines the following sections with the exact headlines as mentioned in below bullet points. The pointers for each heading are mentioned in sub-bullets. We understand that you are not at the final solution yet, but we want to make sure enough thought has been given to the following points (bullets, sub-bullets) in your proposal.

  • Your vision of this project

    • What can this become in long term?

    • Who may be potential users?

    • What value/benefits will it bring to them

  • Features of the solution

    • What functionality it will support and how (through UI, API, Agents)

    • For example

      • Will there be a UI? If yes, what will it do. Will it be for demonstration of concept with APIs being main offering, or will UI be an integral part of the final solution?

      • Will you APIs also be part of the solution? If yes, what will they provide

      • Will there be agents - what will they do?

  • How someone will use the solution

    • How will they run this project? What kind of pre-requisites they may require?

    • The format of shipping - Will this be shipped as a Godspeed plugin, or a sample starter project, or a microservice with APIs, or a backend admin UI with APIs, or a TS SDK or a combination of those? (Such combinations on what the end deliverable will be, and how it will be consumed by future users of this project)

  • How are we solving the problem? (The solution design)

    1. Tech stack that you foresee

    2. Solution Components and Architecture

    3. Research that you wish to explore

    4. Innovative design concepts that you plan to bring/explore

  • Any special considerations

    • Do users of this project need to think about some special considerations when using this project? For ex. Corners cases. Or a certain knowledge, expertise, dependency or infra required to run this.

  • What this project does not do (limitations)

  • Potential future enhancements

    • Technical or functional

• GitHub Repository (Optional): If you’ve built related projects in the past, or especially for WOA application, include links to your GitHub repositories to showcase your work and technical expertise.

• Team Members: Their bios, linkedin/github/hackerrank profile, description etc

📋 Evaluation and Shortlisting

All proposals will undergo a careful evaluation by our expert panel and group mentors. Shortlisted participants will be announced based on:

• Clarity, depth and feasibility of the proposal, in adherence to the standard structure (bullets) shared above.

• Innovation and originality.

• Work done already towards this project (or relevant experience from another project in past - in your resume or even better a github repo of that project with readme and video demo)

• Explanation why you and your team is right fit

Make your proposal stand out, and take the first step toward building something extraordinary!

For Large Projects

• A single team will be finalized and personally mentored with deep focus.

For non-shortlisted teams, you can be like Eklavya

• Dont be disheartened if you are not selected. You can still try!

• You can build this in parallel and best effort support will be given in Discord and Godspeed Portal by the mentors. If you really build something worthwhile,

  • You may as well stand to get recognized and rewarded in the end. This would mean that you have solved the same problem but differently with a unique approach, which deserves applauds and usage.

  • You will gain an experience.

  • Mentors will review your final submission on Godspeed portal, which will help to build your professional profile against real and demonstrable work, for future employer reference.

  • It is possible that if multiple of you apply individually, and we like you but we feel individually you may be not enough, we will try to bring you together as a team.

For Small Projects

All good enough applications will be shortlisted, meaning there can be multiple teams attempting a small project. Depending on the number of submissions, there may or may not be no one to one mentor for all the teams attempting small projects. But you will enjoy group mentorship and peer help in our Discord. Further, we will try our best to have someone review your update for your professional showcase (update and review process details below in SOP).

---

🔍Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for project development

The shortlisted teams will be informed along with their mentors upon fianlisation. They will start meeting at least once a week for feedback, guidance and future planning. The timing will be decided mutually by them.

There will be a formal and timely once in a week update submitted by each team.

• The update will include tasks status, the MRs against the project repos, and the next week’s plans. This can also include a demo, blog and/or a description by the team. All members of team can add their personal comments too.

The updates will be reviewed by mentor(s) who will provide personalized feedback.

• Each member’s skill ratings will be calculated from the feedback by their mentor, against their work - on both non technical and technical aspects. The skills and reviews will reflect in the user profile, alongside the projects.

Community Outreach

• Each team will share weekly updates for review by other professionals in their Linkedin profiles. This will help build the team’s professional profile as an ambitious technologist, and gain followership for your project.

• Upon final submission of the project, you will share a working demo video and a blog post, in your final update. And this too should be shared in your professional and social networks to attract likes, reviews and comments on your work.

Midway Review

• For large projects, the mentors will decide during midway, whether the project is heading in the right direction or not, and is the team capable of pulling it off.

Demo Day

• Those teams which build projects to satisfaction of their mentor will present in front of the judges and an online audience, on demo day. Those whose submission is approved by the judge panel will win the reward.

• If it gets love from the audience (through your social shares), it will get an extra reward!

• This may be a public event with online attendance

📢 Become a Project Mentor!

Are you an AI expert, technologist, or industry professional passionate about guiding the next wave of innovators? Godspeed's Winter of AI invites you to become a Project Mentor!

As a mentor, you can:

• Guide Talent: Share your expertise and help participants tackle real-world challenges.

• Shape Projects: Offer insights and feedback to elevate project outcomes.

• Choose Your Focus: Mentor participants working on curated projects or support their unique ideas within your area of expertise.

• Build Connections: Network with like-minded professionals and the brightest AI enthusiasts.

• Long term possibilities: A successfully built and well loved project by the users, plus connections within the network may lead to bigger things in future!

This is your chance to inspire, lead, and contribute to groundbreaking innovations while shaping the future of AI.

If you'd like to mentor a project of your choice, you can apply on 6th December and become an integral part of this transformative journey!

---

📅 Program Timeline

Here’s a glance at the program schedule:

• Applications Open: 6th December 2024

• Application Closes: 18th December 2024

• Shortlist Announcements: 20th December 2024

• Program Begins: 21st December 2024

• Project Submission Deadline (Small Projects): 10th January 2025

• Project Midway Review (Large Projects): 15th January 2025

• Project Submission Deadline (Large Projects): 31st January 2025 (+ 2 weeks extension in special cases)

---

🌐 Resources to Get Started

To help you get familiar with Godspeed's ecosystem and access all the necessary information for a seamless experience, explore the resources below:

1. Getting Started with Godspeed: A comprehensive guide to understand our platform, tools, and processes.

2. Guides and FAQs: Your go-to resource for answers to common questions and step-by-step instructions to ensure a smooth journey.

3. Chat with Vishwakarma: Our ChatGPT based custom bot which has been fed Godspeed and its plugins’ code, plus documentation and sample projects.

Make sure to review these resources before diving into your project for a head start in Godspeed's Winter of AI!

Are You Ready?

You can check out all project details here: Project listing and application submission

The future of AI is waiting to be built—by you. Join us this winter and be part of a community driving real-world impact through technology.

Stay tuned for application details. Ask your questions in our Discord. Let’s build the future together!