Introduction

This topic refers to the 2018 Marathon Expo, which was held in Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall and lasted for three days, data contains 38,000 images taken from the camera set at the entrance.
The location and gender (male, female, and others[note]) of the visitors in the image can be distinguished rapidly by adopting the object detection technique in machine learning, so gender distribution can be known after a preliminary analysis.

For practical application, visitors’ behaviors and preferences can be analyzed by incorporating data from other devices (i.e. mobile phone). This information can be the reference of route arrangements and booth setup, exhibitors can also plan stands location and activities based on the preference of visitors.

This topic adopts a new competition mode: Participants will upload the analysis program to Aldea, the program will be executed by the platform; original data will only be kept on the platform, and the contest is going to be proceeded with no raw data released.

The purpose of this competition mode is to protect sensitive data, no data will be released on the platform, instead, the data will be read by the uploaded analysis platform. Participants can download container images and develop programs inside the container to ensure the program compatibility.

Notes: “Others” in gender category refers to cases that gender cannot be judged by their appearances, such as children and infants.

Competition Mode

【Remote execution environment】

1. Execution: Aldea will execute the program after analysis program is uploaded to Aldea by the participants. The contest is going to be proceeded with no raw data released.
2. Remote execution environment is a computing environment, which contains two parts: environment for program executing (Python is supported), and data that needs to be analyzed (training sets as well as test sets). After participants upload their analysis program to Aldea, the program will be executed in the computing environment and the result (csv) will be sent to the module to calculate the scores, which will be shown on Aldea. Compared to traditional challenges (participants download the data, perform the analysis, build the model and then upload), this competition mode can protect sensitive data since all the data will only be kept on the platform.
3. This computing environment uses the techniques of containers. Participants can download container image and develop programs inside the container.
4. The file of container image is the same as the file in the remote execute environment so that program compatibility is ensured.
5. Participants develop analysis programs based on sample images, which contains images and labels.
6. Participants can improve and adjust their algorithms of analysis program referring to their score on the platform.
7. After uploading the program, the maximum time of program execution is 4 hours per submission.

【Enrollment】

1. There is a limit on the number of enrollments given that the competition mode and function of this topic are still in a test phase. For those who wants to enroll in this contest, please send us an email. A reply will be given after the evaluation of your related information, if you are determined eligible, then you are welcomed to join the contest.
2. Please complete account registration on AIdea and then send an email to AIdea（admin.AIdea@itri.org.tw) with a subject of [“Characteristics analysis of exhibition visitors” enrollment], and the information below should be included: platform account, email.
3. Related experiments of image analysis (such as other topics on Aldea or other similar contests)

【Procedure】

1. For the enrollment, please refer to the description mentioned above.
2. Prepare a Docker environment, and download container image (docker pull nvaitc/ai-lab:19.08), which is the program development environment.
3. Download sample images, and develop analysis program based on the images.
4. Name the analysis program “main.py,” and pack it into a ZIP file (i.e. prog.zip). If there are other files, pack them in the ZIP file together.
5. The analysis program “main.py” should produce “result.csv” as output (please refer to the “Upload Format Description” for format requirements). If there is no “result.csv” files output, it will be considered as format error.
6. AIdea’s computing section will perform score computation once “prog.zip” was uploaded to the platform, including training and test datasets.
7. The score will be shown on Aldea after the computation completes successfully. Participants can adjust their algorithms of the analysis program referring to it.

Prize

The following awards will be given to the top three participants whose score on the Private Leaderboard meets the baseline（mAP > 0.50）：

First place: 150,000 discount points of hicloud + NTD 50,000 (Tax included)

Second place: 100,000 discount points of hicloud

Third place: 50,000 discount points of hicloud

Honorable mention: 50,000 discount points of hicloud (multiple winners, depends on the final result)

Gift Redemption:

1. A specially made coaster will be given to the participants who submit their results.
2. Gift supplies are limited, redemption of coaster is available on a first-come first-served basis.
3. Each account can redeem 1 coaster only.
   

※ Participants are welcomed to test the smoothness or other related operating conditions of the platform, and are also encouraged to give feedbacks through forum discussion or admin mailbox (the forum shall have the priority). The one who gives the most valuable and the largest number of feedbacks can receive the honorable mention award!

Hicloud discount points were provided by Chunghwa Telecom

Notes:

1. Hicloud points can redeem service charge. After the discount, the price will be charged at 30% off based on the list price automatically.

2. Chunghwa Telecom deserves the right to make changes to the terms and conditions herein.

3. The example of discount points calculation can be referred to https://aidea-web.tw/computing