Hackathon: Archivo Vivo de las Lenguas Originarias

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Talking Dictionaries

The Talking Dictionaries project for Indigenous Languages, promoted with the support of the OEI, aims to transform traditional lexicographic materials into high-availability interactive digital tools. This initiative not only preserves the sound and lexical heritage of languages such as Maya, Nahuatl, Sierra Popoluca, Iskonawa and Zapotec, but also builds a technological bridge for their educational and scientific use. By integrating native audio and structured metadata, the project makes the ancestral knowledge of these communities accessible, functional, and resilient in the face of the digital divide.

Objectives

Within the framework of this Hackathon, the project focuses on addressing the complexity of data heterogeneity. The goal is to move from static formats (PDF/Word) to dynamic JSON structures and, subsequently, establish networks of lexical-semantic correspondences among the different languages. Through the analysis of phenomena such as colexification and differentiated lexicalization, we seek not only to digitize words but to map the worldview and the unique conceptual relationships of each culture, thereby strengthening language engineering applied to indigenous languages.

  • Track 1: Parsing and Multiformat Extraction

    Develop extractors that convert dictionaries in PDF/Word to a unified JSON schema, dealing with inconsistencies of fields across the 5 working languages.

  • Track 2: Lexical-Semantic Alignment

    Design algorithms that identify semantic links between the JSONs, resolving cases of colexification and differentiated segmentation of the lexical domain.

Formal Problem Description

The formal problem description will be announced soon.

Dates and Location

  • April 17–20, 2026
  • Instituto de Investigaciones en Matemáticas Aplicadas y en Sistemas (IIMAS) - Edificio C, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Registration

Registration can be individual or by team (4–6 members). If your team does not complete the number of members, incomplete teams will be combined. Individual registration is allowed!

You can register here.

Evaluation

  • Information Retrieval

This section focuses on retrieving and analyzing relevant information from the submitted projects. Thorough evaluation of the technical approach and implementation details.

  • Expert Evaluation

Experienced professionals will review each project based on innovation, creativity, and potential impact. Detailed feedback will be provided to all participants.

More information about the evaluation (evaluators, evaluation sets, etc.) will be available soon.

Prizes

  • 🥉 Third place

$8,000.00 MXN in gift cards.

  • 🥈 Second place

$13,000.00 MXN in gift cards.

  • 🥇 First place

$22,000.00 MXN in gift cards.

A participation certificate will be awarded to all teams regardless of their result.

Read our Terms & Conditions (in Spanish).