This year's SuiteWorld Hackathon challenged participants to leverage AI and machine learning (ML) to tackle a complex challenge for American Bird Conservancy(opens in new tab) (ABC). For 30 years, ABC has been dedicated to conserving wild birds and their habitats across the Americas. The 11th annual Hackathon tasked participants with using NetSuite’s AI technology to prioritize a list of bird conservation projects that would maximize conservation impact based on bird risk levels, population density, and program expenses.
The SuiteWorld Hackathon is one of many ways NetSuite demonstrates its commitment to serving its customers and the world. For nearly two decades, the NetSuite Social Impact team has collaborated with organizations of all sizes to accelerate their missions through cloud technology donations, product discounts, pro bono services, and educational workshops.
ABC has used NetSuite since January 2024 to manage the organization’s grants, donor relationships, and financial reports to help further its mission.
“NetSuite is helping us organize our data—including financial, grant, and conservation data—in one place,” said Erin Chen, vice president of development at ABC. “We've gone from having data in multiple places to having elements of our mission coalesce in a single source of truth. With this, we’re able to make informed decisions about mission-critical programs and ensure the health of our organization simultaneously.”
The Hackathon space was a hive of creativity and focus. Teams engaged in deep discussion while filling flip charts with sketches, solution concepts, and conservation strategy notes. Employees from both ABC and NetSuite connected with teams made up of NetSuite customers and partners to share expert opinions and insights from the worlds of bird conservation and ML, helping them build the best solution possible.
Teams worked both remotely and in-person at Caesars Forum in Las Vegas, turning to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to build ML models and NetSuite to deliver operational insights. After hours of collaboration, Team Raygun—which included Bart Wadley and Jarred Spriggs of NetSuite partner Annexa, Tim Pilgrim of partner Suite Function, and Shannon Barratt of customer Abco Products—emerged as the Hackathon winner. Their solution combined an intuitive user interface with a powerful algorithm that could assign a priority rating to conservation projects. It was something that ABC’s programs could use right away and was capable of scaling to meet their needs.
“I'm all about data—it’s what our work is grounded in,” ABC’s Central Region Director Dr. Jim Giocomo said. “Having AI support our analysis and assessment of mission-critical projects will be an advantage for our organization and the bird conservation world overall.”
Other teams showcased precision-driven mathematical models with strong bias and variance management to deliver higher accuracy. These models excelled at handling outliers and anomalies in the data to deliver accurate assessments of bird population risk. Many also included visualizations that made it easier to interpret the data. Using OCI and NetSuite, groups provided solutions with the insights needed for project planning and immediate real-world usability to address complex challenges.
“It means a lot to have partners like NetSuite who are so eager to invest in our work,” said Madeline Duffy, social media specialist at ABC. “We are grateful for the NetSuite hackers’ passion and ideas and excited to see what the future of bird conservation could look like with the tools built through this event.”
NetSuite’s Social Impact team supports thousands of nonprofits and social enterprises globally. If you’re interested in applying for our programs and services, please visit our site(opens in new tab) or email us at socialimpact_ww@oracle.com.