Teradata Corporation (NYSE: TDC), the big data analytics and marketing applications company, today announced student winners from the third Teradata Aster and Northwestern University Hackathon at the school’s McCormick Education Center. The winning graduate students receive trip packages to the upcoming Teradata PARTNERS conference to present their findings to a global audience of data-driven professionals.
Thirty-eight students in the Northwestern Master of Science in Analytics (MSiA) Program put their data science skills to the test while learning to solve big analytics problems. With only a few hours of training, the students used Teradata Aster Analytics to compete, utilizing multi-genre analytical techniques such as pattern, text, prediction and graph analytics problem-solving.
James Green and Kapil Vinay Bhatt won the Hackathon analyzing an in-patient discharge data set in order to reduce healthcare costs while also improving patient healthcare quality. The team leveraged a variety of Teradata Aster analytic approaches in order to predict diagnosis errors and outcomes. The team mashed-up external data sources with the data provided and were able to leverage the Teradata® Aster® AppCenter, a framework that allows data scientists and business analysts to easily build, share and deploy big data applications.
The second place team was Mengshan Jin and Balamurali Natarajan, who leveraged an airline’s dataset to predict and articulate the many factors contributing to airline flight delays. They also ranked contributing features such as airports, aircraft age, and aircraft makers.
The Hackathon was led by Northwestern University Professor and MSiA program director Diego Klabjan, John Thuma, Teradata Aster Big Data evangelist, and Mary Gros, director of the academic influencer program at Teradata. Teradata Aster data scientists Troy Baker, Greg Bethardy, Brian Kreeger and Roger Fried also provided hands-on training and mentoring.
“The skills the students are learning will accelerate their careers because the job demand is explosive. With the Teradata Aster platform’s ease of use, the practice of data science is simplified so that students can dive right in with a few hours of prep,” said Professor Klabjan.
A hackathon is a data mining competition in which new or existing data scientists use analytics to resolve hypothetical problems. Hackathons have become popular as demand for practitioners in big data analytics continues to rise. The Teradata Aster Hackathon is featured on the Teradata ASTER Community web page.
“It’s significant and exciting that the students learned how to use the Teradata Aster platform in just half a day,” said Teradata’s John Thuma. “We all know that big data costs money. However, big data analytics on Teradata Aster make money. More than a hundred companies are already using Aster to uncover and unleash the power of detailed business insight. In just hours, the students demonstrated how big data analytics insights can make money for organizations.”
The course of study in the MSiA program has evolved. “In the past year, the program has added Deep Learning coursework, included Python in the core course requirements, and expanded data visualization instruction,” said Klabjan. As the field continues to evolve, the program will continue to modify and add to our robust analytics curriculum, ensuring our graduates will be exceptionally well equipped to communicate the full value of data to the organizations they serve. Teaming with Teradata has been a very important part of our program.”
In addition to sponsoring the Hackathon at Northwestern University, Teradata is preparing the next generation of data scientists in multiple ways. The company also offers support in its Teradata University Network program, a web-based portal for faculty and students in data warehousing, which offers business intelligence, decision support and a database that is provided at no cost to participating universities. The Teradata University Network (TUN) is Teradata’s academic outreach program that hosts annual student competitions, faculty workshops and contests, and a web-based portal for faculty and students. Through the website, TUN offers analytics, big data, database, and sports analytics resources as well as hands on tools, all at no cost to universities. Teradata University Network has over 2,500 registered faculty members and thousands of students, from over 2,400 universities, in 115 countries.
In addition to Teradata University Network, there is a free companion site for students, the Teradata Student Network.
“This was a fun and fascinating event,” said Szabolcs Paldy, vice president, Digital Marketing at Discover Financial Services, a judge and mentor at the Hackathon. “Yet on another level it was serious analytic insight discovery, and these bright students were using complex analytical techniques such as pattern recognition, text analysis, graph analytics and predictive computation. At Discover, we have a highly data-driven organization, with a team of data scientists who analyze a variety of data across many dimensions of our business to formulate insights.”
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