Second annual Data Analytics Competition at DSU

January 18, 2024

The Data Analytics Competition at Dakota State University has returned for a second year.

This free event allows collegiate teams to evaluate big data sets and make data forecasts for real-world business needs. It gives students plenty of opportunities to grow their critical thinking, collaboration, and presentation skills.

This year, teams will be able to choose from two different problem statements. Teams can classify pattern recognition in Health Plan ACA claims data for fraud assessment. Teams can also choose to leverage the U.S. census data to estimate haplotype, or physical groupings of genomic variants that tend to be inherited together, population frequencies used to determine the reportable diplotype, or a subset of all genotypes on homologous chromosome pairs in the population, for patients.

The competition is open to college students nationwide, who can apply to participate until 5 p.m. on Sunday, January 21. Each team will be made up of 3-5 students and one advisor, who is allowed to provide limited guidance.

Teams will have about a month to evaluate the large data sets and make their recommendations. The results submission will be due by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, February 25.

This year’s sponsor, Sanford Health, will announce the top five teams on Wednesday, March 6. Those top five teams will travel to DSU to present their results during DSU’s annual research week in March. Each team will have 15-20 minutes to present their results to the audience. After the final team presentation, Sanford Health representatives will share their perspectives on the two problem sets and best analytics practices.

The top three teams will be awarded cash prizes of $2,500, $1,500, and $1,000.

At last year’s inaugural competition sponsored by CAPITAL Services, 30 teams turned in the initial data analysis. Three teams from DSU made the top five, and two of those teams placed first and second in the competition.