RAG: Building LLM-powered Apps with Your Own Data

Empower your AI creations with text-based GenAI and join a week-long AI innovation challenge with Vectara!

• Discover RAG Enhance LLMs with fresh, trusted data using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).
• Vectara's Power Explore Vectara, the trusted GenAI platform for building innovative AI applications.
• Get Started Dive into the week-long Hackathon Challenge and craft RAG-based applications.
• Choose Your Challenge Opt for Customer Support, Legal, Financial Services, or Healthcare to showcase your skills.
• Join us and scale your AI applications to a new level.

Enroll now!

What is RAG?

RAG (retrieval augmented generation) is an AI methodology that enables large language models (LLMs) to utilize up-to-date, reliable information from external sources, avoiding hallucinations. It enhances LLMs' responses, ensuring accuracy, transparency, and trust. With RAG, developers can create smarter, more reliable GenAI applications in various fields, while reducing the risk of errors and data leaks.

About Vectara

Vectara, the trusted GenAI platform, is an API based end-to-end solution for RAG (RAG in a box), that empowers builders to create powerful generative AI applications.

Built for developers, Vectara simplifies the process of building text-based GenAI applications by managing all the necessary components within its platform: document pre-processing, the Boomerang embedding model, its own high performance vector store, and integration with LLMs to create an end-to-end RAG flow that just works.

Vectara offloads the complexity of having to implement your own document pre-processing and chunking strategy, choose an embedding model, deploy a vector database and craft custom prompts for summarization LLM, and allows developers to focus on building their core GenAI application and deliver their business impact faster, and at scale.

Vectara's Capabilities include:

Retrieval-engine: state of the art semantic text search and retrieval using Vectara’s latest Boomerang model
Cross language support: Vectara supports questions and answers in 100+ languages and dialects
Speed: Lightning fast end-to-end RAG implementation
API based: developer-friendly APIs that are easy to use for building your application
Advanced search: state of the art implementation of Hybrid search that allows you to optimize search relevance by combining semantic search and keyword search

With your free Vectara growth account you get:

Up to 50MB of text indexed
Up to 15K queries/month

Plenty for a hackathon!

Discover Vectara's Hackathon Guide to get started.

Join Vectara!

Create an account on Vectara platform to access a free trial during the Hackathon and harness the full potential of our powerful generative AI capabilities.

Vectara Hackathon Guide.
Equip yourself with resources and supercharge your project.

Get Started

Hackathon Challenge

In this hackathon, you'll harness the potential of RAG (the hottest movement in GenAI today) to develop innovative GenAI applications using Vectara's platform.

Challenges:

Choose one of the following use-cases and build an RAG-based application:

Customer Support: Create a GenAI solution to enhance customer support interactions. For example a customer-support chatbot to answer customer questions.
Legal: Develop an application for the legal industry, such as legal document question-answering or research assistance.
Financial Services: Build a GenAI tool for analysis of financial documents, trading, or customer engagement.
Healthcare: Create a healthcare application, such as medical record summarization or patient communication.

Prizes:

Best Overall: $1,500 cash + $1500 Vectara credits
Best App in each of the challenge categories: $500 cash + $1500 Vectara credits
Best contribution to vectara-ingest: $1,500 Vectara credits
Best contribution to vectara-answer: $1,500 Vectara credits

In this hackathon, you'll harness the potential of RAG (the hottest movement in GenAI today) to develop innovative GenAI applications using Vectara's platform.

Please note, each hackathon project can only win one of the challenges. Cash prizes awarded in USD. Vectara credits will be awarded to winners, provided participants have a Vectara account with a registered credit card on this account. Please be aware that while we endeavor to expedite the distribution process with our partners, the delivery of prizes may take up to 90 days. lablab will not be held responsible for delays or inability to deliver prizes for this event as it relies solely on the partner (Vectara) to receive the total prize amount and distribute it. Additionally, while the lablab team will endeavor to make their best effort, there is no guarantee of entry, offer, or reward of any of giveaways or prizes, and such entry, offer, or reward will be subject to their respective availability, conditions, and certain criteria that will need to be met. lablab reserves the right to amend, modify or cancel any of the items or terms of this event or even the event in its entirety. While lablab is not obligated to, it will endeavor to inform participants within a reasonable timeframe of such changes.

Hackathon Sponsor

Anyscale

Anyscale, offers a cost-efficient platform for training and deploying models with access to advanced AI capabilities. Participants receive exclusive credits to enhance their development and deployment experience, including access to models like Llama LLMs and more.

Test it out

Judging Criteria

Our judging criteria seeks submissions that not only demonstrate technical excellence but also practical utility.

Application of RAG with Vectara: Technical Mastery: Entries will be evaluated based on their skillful use of RAG and Vectara's API to solve real-world challenges.
Presentation and Communication: Clear Demonstration: Submissions should be presented in a manner that effectively conveys their key features and the final product or prototype.
Real-World Impact: Business Value: Judges will assess the extent to which projects offer real-world solutions and benefits that are well-defined. Submissions should identify target users and address specific needs or problems with clarity.
Innovation: Originality: Stand out by showcasing inventive, outside-the-box applications of RAG and Vectara. We're seeking creative, forward-thinking uses of these technologies that provide a fresh perspective on how text-based GenAI with RAG can create new value.

Hackathon Details

Join lablab.ai for a 7-day challenge to innovate and build with Vectara. Find all the relevant details below.

🗓️ Where and when

The hackathon will start on November 3rd. The hackathon will take place on the lablab.ai platform and lablab.ai Discord server.

### 🦸🏼‍♂️ Who can join? Everyone is welcome to participate, regardless of previous AI or coding experience! We encourage anyone with a passion for AI or an interest in exploring how it can be used in their field to join.

😅 What about teams?

If you don't have a team, don't worry! You can connect with other participants from all over the world on our dashboard or Discord server. We also recommend checking out our Discord server to find teammates and bounce around ideas. You can join the server here

🛠️ How to participate

The hackathon will take place online on lablab.ai platform and lablab.ai Discord Server. Please register for both in order to participate. To participate click the "Enroll" button at the bottom of the page and read our Hackathon Guidelines and Getting Started Guide.

🧠 Get prepared!

To get ready for the hackathon, visit our AI Tech pages and read up on all the available technologies. For the deeper dive into Vectara, use the Vectara's Hacker Guide. You can also check out our tutorials page for more information on how to use them. Get a head start on your project by using the resources on lablab.ai!