A Nigerian MBA student, Adeyemi Olalemi, played a key role in developing an AI-powered crisis response system during Aggie Hacks, a 48-hour virtual data hackathon organised by Master of Science in Business Analytics and MBA students.
The challenge presented to participants was to build a next-generation AI-powered crisis intelligence system capable of acting as the “thinking brain” of a smart city during a multi-disaster scenario.
Under the theme ‘The City Has Gone Silent – Can You Be Its Brain?’, students worked with a massive dataset provided by organisers to model solutions to a simulated emergency.
Olalemi and his team, The Data Farmers, developed a system called NeuroPolis. “In a simulated Hurricane Ian of 2022, NeuroPolis would save 91 lives and cut $11bn in potential infrastructure losses,” said Olalemi.
“It’s a glimpse into a future where technology saves lives in moments of chaos.”
The team turned over 50,000 rows of data into a full-stack prototype that combined AI-driven chat, real-time dashboards, and blockchain-verified information.
The hackathon featured two rounds of judging. The first round included the Chief Executive Officer, Amrutha Gujjar and Founder of Sponsor Structured Labs; MSBA Academic Director Carrie Beam; and lecturer Mehul Rangwala.
Students described the experience as amazing, fantastic and exciting, with one adding, “We didn’t sleep much.” MSBA student Linda Sun said, “At the start of the hackathon, there was so much data, and we didn’t know how to handle it.
“We had three to four meetings to discuss it all, and I stayed on the computer for a whole night. That’s how I did this project. I’m so happy that I can do something in the real world that can help predict disasters.”
The final judging panel included industry experts Sameer Ziaee of Clay, Deep Barot of ContextQA, MSBA alumnus Kshitiz Parashar, and MSBA Director of Analytics Projects Josue Martinez.
The event ended with an Olympic-style awards ceremony in San Francisco, where The Data Farmers received the award for Best Mixed MBA/MSBA Team.
Other winning teams included Team Gogogo, which took first place; Just a Bunch of Hackers, which received the Visionary Vanguard Award; Secure the B-Aggie, which won Best Storytelling; and Wenjun Song, who was named Best Presenter.
Dean Rao Unnava said, “This type of innovative thinking is just another reason our MSBA graduates are in such high demand and why our programme is ranked No. 1 in the world for return on investment.”
