The CSE Summer School 2024 was a three-day academic bootcamp, organized for the first time by the Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HCMUT), VNU-HCM. Taking place from July 12 to July 14, 2024, the program welcomed 100 carefully selected high school students from across Vietnam, with a central theme focusing on Large Language Models (LLMs). Aimed at students passionate about information technology, the camp featured expert-led lectures, hands-on workshops, and a final-day hackathon where participants built chatbot applications using LLMs. Despite the short timeframe, the program provided intensive training that blended foundational theory with real-world practice, effectively inspiring curiosity and creativity among future tech innovators.
The organizing committee included researchers and professors from the URA Research Group at HCMUT, Stanford University, and Ton Duc Thang University. Building upon the camp’s structure, hackathon format, and instructional materials, the team authored the paper “Riding on the Back of a Whale: A Hackathon Framework for Introducing High School Students to Large Language Models.” The paper was accepted into the Late-Breaking Results track at AIED 2025, an A-ranked international conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education.
The paper presents a project-based learning model that integrates essential LLM tutorials with a capstone hackathon. Students progressed from foundational lessons on LLM architecture and fine-tuning to deploying their own AI-powered applications. The framework emphasized rapid iteration and feedback, helping learners bridge theory and practice in a focused, engaging format. This recognition at AIED 2025 also reflects the strong educational value delivered by the 2024 summer school.
Encouraged by this success, CSE Summer School is now preparing for an even more exciting 2025 edition, with the trending theme: AI Agents. Stay tuned for updates on the official media channels of CSE – HCMUT!