October 10, 2023—Liberia, Costa Rica—Greenlight Consulting, in partnership with UiPath, CINDE, and Universidad Cenfotec, have successfully concluded the first edition of the Costa Rica RPA & AI Hackathon 2023. This transformative event aimed to spread awareness about Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and hyperautomation while introducing the UiPath toolset and its free learning resources.
The hackathon, spanning over two months, commenced with 150 participants attending an awareness session and several training sessions led by Professor Lewis Goldenberg, and supported by UiPath MVPs Sebastián Villalobos and Josué Chinchilla. Participants were empowered to tackle real-world challenges related to Costa Rica as a whole, addressing community needs, and solving student problems. Throughout the event, Greenlight and UiPath’s RPA experts provided mentorship to assist participants in their learning journey.
Greenlight Consulting, which established operations in Costa Rica in 2022 and has been growing its Robot Operations (Bot Ops) team since, was thrilled to spearhead this initiative with UiPath’s Community team. With RPA and AI recognized as essential components of today’s digital transformation, the hackathon was invaluable in providing students with an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of how RPA and AI can be employed to make work less robotic and more human-centric.
UiPath, a Leader for the 5th consecutive year in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant™ for Robotic Process Automation, offered its robust AI-powered platform through their free Community edition. As a follow up to the hackathon, the UiPath Academic Alliance extended support to schools with their free resources to include in RPA curricula, including Greenlight’s capstone projects which are based on real use cases.
The winners of the hackathon devised innovative solutions that have great potential to profoundly impact society:
Agricultural Empowerment Platform
Problem Statement: Farmers in Costa Rica face economic difficulties due to a lack of information about real market prices for their products. Lack of transparency and reliance on middlemen result in unfair payments for crops.
Proposed Solution: This winning team developed a platform that provides farmers with real-time price information and educational resources. This solution aims to empower farmers economically, promote transparency, and strengthen rural communities. The solution cleverly incorporated WhatsApp to provide a user-friendly interface to farmers who commonly use it as a communication tool, and used chatGPT to interpret the pricing question. UiPath products used include Integration Services, Orchestrator, and Document Understanding.
Antonio Mora Blotta, one of the participants on the Agricultural Empowerment Platform team, shared his experience of the hackathon:
“I had the opportunity to participate in the hackathon and it was an incredible experience. The staff was always willing to help us through the process and you could tell they really cared. I recommend that if you have the opportunity to participate, you do so.”
Efficient Tax Invoicing Platform
Problem Statement: Costa Rica’s tax system poses challenges for individual users and small businesses due to its complexity and lack of user-centric design.
Proposed Solution: This team proposed an efficient tax invoicing platform that simplifies the electronic invoicing process for taxpayers. This solution incorporates Robotic Process Automation (RPA) using UiPath technology to automate the invoice creation process, reducing national transaction costs and promoting sustainable growth.
“Participating in the first hackathon was a rewarding experience. Although I had heard about RPA for several years, I never imagined how powerful they can be and how straightforward they can become. The supporting documentation was extremely clear, and the support from Greenlight Consulting made a crucial difference in successfully completing the proof of concept I presented. Additionally, I had the opportunity to meet members of the UiPath community in Costa Rica, with whom I exchanged questions and experiences. This activity proved to be an exceptional space for devising truly innovative solutions.” – Luis Diego Maroto Segura, participant of the hackathon
Restaurant Information Consolidation
Problem Statement: Health Consultant, Lucía Carvajal Flores, faced challenges finding restaurants during her travels in Costa Rica. She wished for an efficient way to access restaurant information in one place.
Proposed Solution: With no prior coding background, Lucía used UiPath’s low-code capabilities to create an RPA solution. Her project consolidates restaurant data from multiple websites, including type of cuisine, customer reviews, address, and more, into an Excel sheet for easy consumption and manipulation. This solution simplifies restaurant discovery and could potentially lead to a user-friendly website to address this specific need, as well as cater to related needs, such as where to stay.
Lucía shared her transformational journey:
“Before the Costa Rica RPA & AI Hackathon, I didn’t know anything about RPA. As a Nurse specializing in Data Analytics, it is so important to find new ways to use technology to improve my work. At the beginning, RPA sounded a little bit intimidating, but thanks to the UiPath team and the user-friendly software, I felt highly motivated that RPA was a strong tool to make magic happen. Now I’m able to make databases in real-time and so fast, and focus my time on other things that really need my humanity and soft skills. I recommend UiPath, their IT professionals, and of course, I invite all the medical sector to try RPA to improve healthcare.”
This hackathon not only showcased the power of RPA and hyperautomation but also emphasized the growth potential in Costa Rica’s tech ecosystem. As Álvaro Cordero, Director of Software Engineering from Universidad Cenfotec noted, “it is essential to make students and the community aware of the opportunities for growth and innovation in partnership with universities and tech companies.”
Melanie Lam, Innovation Director at Greenlight Consulting, commented on the winning submissions:
“It’s truly been an inspiring experience witnessing participants’ learning journey and caliber of submissions. The innovative solutions presented not only showcased the immense talent in Costa Rica but also the transformative power of RPA and AI.”
Regarding Greenlight Consulting’s future in Costa Rica, she said, “At Greenlight Consulting, we’re deeply committed to elevating students’ knowledge and expanding our capabilities in Costa Rica. We’re excited about the future and look forward to many more collaborative initiatives in this vibrant tech ecosystem.”
About Greenlight Consulting
Greenlight Consulting is the premier, full-service digital transformation consulting firm. Canadian-owned, with operations across North and Central America, our diverse staff are well equipped to streamline and digitally enable your organization.
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About UiPath
UiPath, headquartered in New York City, is a global company with development centers in the United States, Romania, India, and Japan. The firm offers the world’s most powerful and easy-to-use AI-powered business automation platform and has a learning community that offers virtual courses at no cost.
About CINDE
For more than 40 years, the Costa Rican Coalition of Development Initiatives (CINDE) has worked to attract foreign direct investment to the country. Throughout its history, CINDE has provided support to more than 400 multinational companies established in Costa Rica in various industries, including manufacturing, services, life sciences, and tourist infrastructure. As a private, apolitical organization declared to be of national interest, the agency has been classified since 2017 – and now, for five consecutive years – by the International Trade Center (ITC) as the best investment attraction agency of the world.
