AI Learns to Recognize Bengali Handwritten Digits: Bengali.AI Computer Vision Challenge 2018

TL;DR

This paper introduces the Bengali.AI Computer Vision Challenge 2018, which aimed to develop AI models capable of recognizing Bengali handwritten digits, addressing a lack of structured datasets and fostering local and international collaboration.

Contribution

It presents a new challenge and dataset for Bengali handwritten digit recognition, encouraging research and development in this underexplored language-specific AI task.

Findings

Successful organization of a competitive challenge involving multiple teams.

Creation of a structured dataset for Bengali handwritten digits.

Enhanced interest and progress in Bengali OCR research.

Abstract

Solving problems with Artificial intelligence in a competitive manner has long been absent in Bangladesh and Bengali-speaking community. On the other hand, there has not been a well structured database for Bengali Handwritten digits for mass public use. To bring out the best minds working in machine learning and use their expertise to create a model which can easily recognize Bengali Handwritten digits, we organized Bengali.AI Computer Vision Challenge.The challenge saw both local and international teams participating with unprecedented efforts.