RAISE-26

Artificial Intelligence – Informatics – Data Science AI Competition

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Is AI Transforming Us All?

Exploring AI’s Impact on Human Behavior

RAISE-26, the world’s strongest AI-NLP informatics competition, invites undergraduate and graduate students from all disciplines to explore one of the most urgent questions of our time: Is artificial intelligence (AI) transforming us? This cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence – Informatics – Data Science Competition from the MPI program, Bloustein – Rutgers University, and RAISE Research challenges participants to investigate how AI is shaping human behavior.

STUDENTS – calling all young geniuses, whether you’re an innovator, aspiring leader, ethicist, humanist, artist, scientist or deep thinker — if you’re curious about AI’s influence on humanity, you belong here.
This is your moment! Undergraduate and Graduate Students from all disciplines are welcome.

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Public Informatics @ Rutgers University.

🎓 Who Can Join? Undergrad and Grad students (Master’s or PhD), all disciplines
💡 Theme: AI’s transformative impact on human behavior
🏆 Prizes: Up to $20,000

Eligibility

Teams of two to five members can register for either the undergraduate or graduate track through the registration form. Teams must reply to the RAISE-26 team’s confirmation email to formally join the competition.
The competition is open to currently enrolled undergraduate and graduate students from accredited US institutions.
Participants must legally reside in the US for the full duration of the competition.

Competition Guidelines and Details

Competition Guidelines and Details*
The RAISE-26 competition invites participants to explore the theme “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Is AI Transforming Us All?” by analyzing and uncovering dominant themes in AI’s role in shaping our future. Participants will examine AI’s impact on human behavior and focus on the challenge of determining how AI is shaping the ways humans think, act, and interact.

Analyze news headlines, generate insights, assess ethics, and make recommendations for shared empowerment.
Any/all of these could be addressed or used: Embedded topics and themes, Sentiment Analysis, emotion recognition, Abstractive and extractive summaries, Machine learning methods, rules-based and synthetic approaches, Use of Large Language Models and derivate tools, applications, and code modules, Use of exploratory methods for textual informatics, data visualization, Other AI methods.
Participants will be expected to use informatics, data science, analytics, and AI-based approaches to discover dominant and hidden themes from the dataset. Participants may use exploratory analyses, data visualizations, statistics, computational linguistics, quantitative modeling, machine learning, or other analytical methods.
Each team is free to define its strategy, teams can also use LLMs and tools like Claude, Bard, or ChatGPT. However, the use of any AI tool/s MUST be explicitly declared along with a list of prompts submitted as an appendix. Any use of AI without explicit declaration of specific prompts is disallowed. References for all sources must be cited using APA 6 or higher.
Tools and languages allowed: Python, Colab or Jupyter Notebooks only, R – .R or .RMD only, Tableau, Excel, For any other tool – please confirm with the organizers
Shortlisted finalists will be provided with additional instructions and invited to attend (required) the final round of the competition to be held on April 17, 2025, at Rutgers University.

TERMS and CONDITIONS APPLY – Please review HERE.
Registration implies consent.

Information Sessions

Virtual information sessions will be hosted to provide information and guidance on the competition structure, materials, schedule, and expectations. All sessions will cover the same topics and will be followed by an open Q&A. All instructions will be provided in the documentation which will be shared with registered participants. However, due to the large number of participating student teams from all over the US, it is advisable to attend one of these sessions as it may be difficult to respond to all emails promptly with the required clarity. Please register and attend at least one of the sessions below.

Session 1: Dec 5, Friday – 12 PM EST

RSVP through this link: Zoom Registration

Event Focus

The initial round will be virtual via online submissions. Only finalists will need to present in person. Mark your calendars for the RAISE-26 event at Rutgers University Bloustein School on April 17, 2026!

RAISE-26 will focus on AI’s transformative impact on human behavior globally: our decisions, relationships, habits, business, technology, healthcare, and even our identities.

Is AGI inevitable
Are you ready to explore how deeply AI is influencing human identity
Will agentic AI lead to a reshaping of human functions
How is AI shaping the way we think, act, connect, and live

Bigger, bolder, and more relevant than ever – over 100 teams from national universities participated in
RAISE-25.
This is your chance to showcase your AI-driven problem solving, informatics, advanced data science, and analytics brilliance!

Registration Deadline: 19th January 2026

Register your team for RAISE-26 here

Questions? Email us at informatics@ejb.rutgers.edu

About the Hosts

The Bloustein School’s Master of Public Informatics is a distinguished program for educating highly talented professional student cohorts in the competencies needed in public informatics, advanced data science, and analytics, which includes topics such as machine learning, global data analytics, artificial intelligence, textual analytics and natural language processing, statistics, programming, data management, GIS, visualization, spatial analysis, domain applications, and the application of these skills for domain-specific value creation. The MPI program at Rutgers provides excellent state-of-the-art research-driven project opportunities. Graduates of the MPI program will provide a deep understanding of advanced data science and analytics methods, context, and public benefit perspectives in this fast-growing and high-demand domain.

Interested in sponsorships? Contact our team: informatics@ejb.rutgers.edu

Thanks to Our Collaborators and Supporters