AWS and Meta’s GenAI with XR Hackathon: Shaping the Future

AWS and Meta Hackathon organizing team

The AWS and Meta teams collaborated to host the first-ever GenAI and XR Hackathon. Held from August 27-29 at Amazon’s East Palo Alto office, this event explored the combined power of AWS’s generative AI (GenAI) technology and Meta’s Presence Platform capabilities.

Attendees leveraged AWS GenAI tools, including Amazon Bedrock, Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Q Developer, and models like Llama 3, alongside Meta’s Presence platform SDKs to develop cutting-edge XR apps for the Quest 3 devices. The event was kicked off by Meta’s Product Manager for Presence Platform, Winston Esposito, and AWS’s Spatial Specialist Solutions Architect, Josh Burns, welcoming participants and setting the stage for three days of collaborative innovation.

Participants focused on two main themes: E-commerce or GenAI with AWS. Both AWS and Meta provided technical resources, including workshop videos, a live session on AWS Q Developer by Andy Mui, Sr. Solutions Engineer, on-site Meta XR engineers and AWS Solution Architects, and a dedicated Discord channel.

The hackathon attracted participants from Japan, Norway, Washington, D.C., Texas, and beyond. In total, 31 talented hackers developed 10 projects. On the final day, a panel of experts from Meta and AWS, including Dave Hill, Engineering Manager, VR Web Platform, Meta, Ogo Ifelayo, BD & Partnerships, Meta, Kaiyin Hu, Sr. SA, AWS, and Sayali Oberoi, Principal CSM, AWS, judged the submissions. The projects were evaluated based on innovation, creativity, user experience, Meta Quest innovation, and AWS innovation, focusing on the chosen themes.

The top three winners in each theme received prizes. The two final winners earned $3,500 each, the two second-place teams earned $1,500 each, and the two third-place teams received a prize bag. Every participant was gifted a Quest 3 headset to further their XR development journey.

This transformative hackathon showcased the potential of the combined power of AWS’s GenAI technology and Meta’s Presence Platform. The participating teams demonstrated their creativity, technical expertise, and commitment to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the field of e-commerce and generative AI. This event represents an important step in the continued partnership between Meta and AWS. The submissions highlight how innovative technologies can come together to reimagine the customer experience.

Hacking underway at Amazon East Palo Alto office

Meet the winning projects

E-commerce

Fluid E-commerce Product Vision: The E-commerce first-place project provided a polished vision for the future of e-commerce on the spatial web. The app displays 3D content in the room with the user, augmenting the context of browsing Amazon.com with XR.

GenAI

Drawing Inspiration: The GenAI first-place team built an XR approach to artistic visualization for home decor. This project harnesses mixed reality and generative AI to transform simple sketches into stunning, room-scale art previews within a user’s environment.

Other notable projects included:

Magic Shoe Box: Magic Shoe Box is an XR application that allows users to design custom shoes in a virtual environment.

Mind Palace: This XR app gamifies the Language Learning using visual feedback, by letting the user match the words with the images.

Click here for a full gallery of all projects submitted to this Hackathon.

To learn more about creating Extended Reality (XR) Application on AWS visit this blog.