Hack the Fake News Initiative: Machine Learning Challenge

We are turning to the power of technology to find a disruptive solution to a global trend, impacting all areas of life and public activity.
We are inviting the brightest talents in data science & programming to apply their latest knowledge in machine learning to create one or more algorithms that evaluate the possibility for a random article you encounter online to be fake.

 WHY SHOULD YOU PARTICIPATE?

– Join efforts with other experts and learn in practice more about machine learning
– Put your tech skills to a solution which impacts the whole society
– Winning teams will have the chance to make a real impact by collaboration with media, communication experts and other key players in the online environment
–> MORE ABOUT THE HACKATHON CHALLENGE:
Hackathon Participants will have to apply the most effective machine learning or reinforced machine learning methods to create an algorithm that looks for patterns in fake news structure, punctuation and sentence building and goes beyond occurrence of certain words or evaluation of the reliability of source or other factors that fake news publishers can easily adapt to. With the support of media listening & analytics company Sensika we are providing participating teams with a training set of over 1500 articles, evaluated by communication experts and a test set of more than 20 000 articles, published over a certain period of time.

AFTER THE HACKATHON

The second step would be to bring to life the algorithms created through a coordinated effort of industry organisations, media and public entities. At the public workshop will participate key organisations at the Bulgarian market, such as leading media groups, leading PR associations, top Bulgarian companies.
Representatives of all sides will come together to brainstorm possible applications of those algorithms (such as mobile applications, browser widgets, media integration).
Depending on the results of the workshop there will be additional efforts to apply created algorithms and increase consumer awareness and literacy about the fake news.

Partners:

CAMPAIGN PIONEERS
United Partners – We were born in the early digital year of 1997. Since then we have continuously adapted to the changing environment, striving to deliver amazing content that resonates with our client’s brand identity. Inspired by the fast-changing world of communications, we have transformed from a traditional PR agency to a hybrid agency providing integrated communication solutions.

BAPRA – The Bulgarian PR association (BAPRA) objectives are to support and strengthen PR as an activity, working in favour of the modern society development. Those goals are realised through developing a common platform to exchange best practices, as well as through increasing and maintaining high ethical standards of the profession and through coordinating efforts for PR development in Bulgaria.

Data Science Society – Data Science Society is a community of people dedicated to promoting better collaboration between science, education and business, to accelerate ethical and open innovation. For the past 2 years our driving core of 10 people has been joined by 30 volunteers and over 1000 members of the community. We get inspired & motivated by socializing with like-minded people and learning from each other online and offline, at our own meetups, talks and webinars.

SENSIKA – an innovative, cloud-based, single-access-point Information Intelligence platform that seamlessly fuses relevant and actionable insights from external and internal sources straight into the workflow of every employee in the enterprise, to support sound and agile business decisions, anywhere & anytime.

The Bulgarian Society of PR is a non-profit organization, created to defend the ethical practices in PR. The society is aiming to unite and structure the PR industry in Bulgaria, impose self-regulatory measures and professional standards. Though its initiatives the organization gives practitioners, academia and students opportunities to exchange knowledge and experience and contribute to the development of PR in Bulgaria.

New Bulgarian University is a private university in Sofia, Bulgaria. Currently the “Hack the Fake News Initiative” is supported students in PR, who are processing test sets for the hackathon and by students in computer sciences.

Endorsed by IPRA – the International Public Relations Association