How I won data analytics competition and got fully sponsored trip to The USA!
Data analytics is one of the most interesting field of technology that helps us to make data driven decisions. Being a post-graduate student, I participated in various competitions and hackathon to prove my logical reasoning and analytical ability. I didn’t win most of the competitions but I carefully learnt from each of my failures and won the prestigious People’s Choice Best presentation award 2019 by Teradata. This article is about my journey on how I won this analytics competition, where I represented entire Asia by competing against the 5 other USA Universities.
Data Science Competitions and Hackathons
Being a post-graduate student, it was not easy to balance the academics, competitions and also the part-time work. So, I chose the competitions and hackathons where I can practice and implement my academic knowledge and learn its pros and cons. One such competition was the analytics challenge from Teradata University. It is one of the most challenging and prestigious competitions among the students around the world especially in the data science field. It consists of several months of hard work and preparation which starts around March and ends in October, every year. Having got selected in the preliminary round, I should submit the extended abstract of my project in couple of months from march. After clearing the second round, I should present the complete analysis and insights to the audience and attendees of Teradata conference organized at Denver, Colorado. The selected students and the Mentor/Advisor was provided the scholarship to attend the 5 days conference by Teradata. The travel and accommodation cost was not provided. Therefore, we reached out to my university — Asia Pacific University of Technology and Innovation (APU) for the sponsorship of travel and accommodation. Being an award winning university, APU sponsored all my expenses to attend the conference along with my mentor. Therefore, choose your competition wisely!
Choose your Mentor
My entire journey of this analytics competition started when my mentor spotted my hidden abilities to multitask.
My mentor Mr. Mafas Raheem said, ‘Let’s go do it,’ not ‘You go do it’.
He guided and advised me right from choosing the potential problem to presenting the data story in front of the data science professionals around the world. This is the most important part where you choose your mentor because mentors will aid us in balancing the academics and the competition equally.
To choose dataset first or problem statement first?
To win a competition, especially where the dataset and problem statements are not given, is a great task at the hands of the students. But the silver-lining is that you can choose the dataset or problem statement that you are familiar with or already has an in-depth knowledge to present the optimum solution to the problem at hand. My mentor advised me to take the approach of problem statement first — “Most of the data produced in e-commerce platforms are not optimized for the profit of the sellers”. It is after this, we started to look for dataset that might help us to solve this problem. This approach will help you to form a great story that connects the dots of your dataset.
Data analytics methodology
Nowadays, the professionals in data science field follow various approach in analyzing and presenting the data. I followed the CRISP-DM (cross-industry process for data mining) methodology. There are 6 levels in this methodology where each of the steps were performed in my project. The advantage of this methodology is that we can evaluate our model performance and compare it to our business understanding and requirements. It helps us to align more towards the desired results of our analysis. The disadvantage can be following every step up until the deployment which makes it time consuming approach.
Data visualization is the face value of your effort
Visualization was my trump-card to attract the visitors of the conference to attend my presentation booth and demo. Therefore, I decided to present the information, insights and visualization in its own designated sections that helped me in the flow of my data story and presentation.
Data Storytelling is an art
Story is one of the most innate form of art among us. We grew up listening to stories and now, we take decisions based on the data story. I used various props to support my story like presentation slides, animations, videos and demo setup. After presenting my data story to countless attendees of the conference, I managed to convince them and got their votes for the “People’s Choice Best Presentation” award.
