Robot Make-Up Assistant Wins Hong Kong AI Hackathon
Iron Bestie, a robotic arm powered by vision-language models, took home top honours at Hong Kong's first physical AI hackathon.
Quick Look
Iron Bestie, a personalized robotic make-up assistant, won the Grand MVP award at Hong Kong's first physical artificial intelligence hackathon, beating over 160 global competitors.
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Why It Matters
Iron Bestie won Hong Kong's first physical artificial intelligence hackathon, beating over 160 global competitors.
Imagine a woman sitting at her vanity as a robotic arm reaches across the table, picks up her lipstick, and applies it to her lips while running through her morning schedule.
Meet Iron Bestie, a personalised make-up assistant that just snatched top honours at what organisers billed as Hong Kong’s first physical artificial intelligence hackathon, beating more than 160 global competitors in an intense 48-hour hardware-meets-software sprint this week.
Powered by vision-language models and voice recognition, the AI arm can identify make-up on a table, select the right product based on a user’s calendar, and apply it directly to their face. To keep personal routines secure, local redaction middleware ensured sensitive user data remained private, the investors said.
The winning team included an unexpected duo: Luo Yuqing, a business information systems graduate from the City University of Hong Kong who said she had no formal coding background, and Zeng Yitao, a senior algorithm developer from the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen.
For Luo, who only started tinkering with AI out of curiosity a year ago, taking home the Grand MVP award in her debut hackathon transformed how she sees robotics, thanks in part to an unexpected glitch on day one.
“When the robotic hand wrapped around my wrist on the first day, it felt like I was holding hands with someone I like,” Luo said.
Open Questions
- Will Iron Bestie be commercialized for consumers?
