The Lally School of Management and the Rensselaer Institute for Data Exploration and Applications (IDEA) hosted the second annual Business Analytics Case Competition in April. More than 50 undergraduate and graduate students on 20 teams from across the campus signed up for the competition. Seventeen teams completed and presented the case at the competition. The student teams analyzed a real-world case study, utilized provided data sets, and presented their innovative findings to a panel of esteemed judges.
The case study asked students to develop a data-driven strategy for identifying and prioritizing locations for new bike rack installations in New York City. These racks are installed by the Department of Transportation (DOT) in New York City to provide infrastructure support for cycling, alleviating traffic-related problems across the city. Data from status feed on Citi Bike stations and trip histories, bike routes, venues, and other demographic and area factors were available to participants. Students could bring in any other data they thought was needed to complete the task.
“The Rensselaer Business Analytics Case Competition brings together students from across all academic and research disciplines who are challenged with a real-world problem in the data analytics domain,” said Dorit Nevo, associate professor of information systems at the Lally School of Management. “Students get to experience analytics firsthand and apply what they have learned in their courses in an exciting competition format.”
The Rensselaer Business Analytics Case Competition brings together students from across all academic and research disciplines who are challenged with a real-world problem in the data analytics domain.—Dorit Nevo, associate professor of information systems at the Lally School of Management
Students competed for a first-place team prize of $1,500, second-place prize of $1,000, and a third-place prize of $500. Teams consisted of one to three student members. Judges included Lally and IDEA faculty, Lally Ph.D. candidates, and Rensselaer Lally M.S. in business analytics alumni and alumnae.
“Advances in data analytics are creating many significant transformations in the way that businesses around the world are operating,” said James Hendler, professor and director of the Rensselaer IDEA. “This competition gives our students an opportunity to explore problems and create solutions for tackling data-driven issues in business and research.”
Awards were earned by the following top three teams:
First Place | $1,500 prize
Nicholas Koulopoulos ’17, computer science and computer and systems engineering, Raymond Jacobson ’16, computer science and computer and systems engineering, and Joseph Lee ’17, computer and systems engineering.
Second Place | $1,000 prize
Arun Venkateswaran ’16, M.S. in business analytics, Devon Medlin ’16, M.S. in business analytics, and Srinivasan Iyer ’16, M.S. in business analytics.
Third Place | $500 prize
Congrui Li, Ph.D. candidate in computer science, Anirudh Prabhu, Ph.D. candidate in multidisciplinary science, and Pu Zhang, Ph.D. candidate in industrial and systems engineering.
Two teams received honorable mentions:
Hendrik Weideman, Ph.D. candidate in computer science.
Ray Parker ’16, chemical engineering, Charlie Yu, computer science, and Adam Lawrence ’18, computer science.