Doing Our Part to Close the Skills Gap

We hear it over and over again from our customers: “If you know of any good data scientists, send them our way!” Well, we do.

Recently, Teradata University Network, our global academic outreach program, announced 17 finalists in the 4th annual, international big data talent competition. The contest, meant to advance the use of analytics in business and recognize students with superior analytics skills, offered up two distinct challenges for teams.

The Analytics Challenge gave students the freedom to choose the business analytics project of their choice they would like to study, create and present (any topic using any tools).

As part of Teradata’s focus on data philanthropy, we partnered with a charity for the Data Challenge. All students were provided with a data set and questions from RISE AGAINST HUNGER, a non-profit organization whose mission is to end hunger in our lifetime by providing food and life-changing aid to the world’s most vulnerable and creating a global commitment to mobilize the necessary resources.

These 17 finalists, who are listed below and hail from universities across the U.S., Australia and Thailand, will present their projects at the Teradata PARTNERS Conference , Oct 22-26, in Anaheim, CA. A panel of esteemed judges will judge the entries on originality of idea, quality of argumentation, writing quality, and overall contribution to new knowledge. In addition to these formal presentations, all conference attendees – many of whom are the Teradata customers quoted above - will have the opportunity to cast a vote for their favorite project. Winners will be announced in a conference ceremony on Monday evening, October 23^rd.

Potential employers will have another opportunity to meet these and other motivated, passionate students at Teradata’s 2^nd Annual Career Fair on Saturday, October 21^st, 2017. Entry is free and participating companies including Wells Fargo and others will be a part of it!

Students and faculty interested in attending the Teradata PARTNERS conference are eligible for special academic REGISTRATION rates of $650 for faulty and $350 for students.

And finally, we're proud to announce this year’s finalists:

2017 Analytics Challenge FINALISTS

Auburn University (Chao Wei Zhang)

California State University Fullerton (Vikneshvar Chandrasahan)

Loyola University Chicago (Tessa Boukal)

NIDA Thailand (Saranya Khunchotiphong)

University of Cincinnati (Christopher Kearney)

University of Massachusetts Lowell (Christine Vaudo)

University of Massachusetts Lowell (Tri Mai)

University of Massachusetts Lowell (Neha Ajgaonkar)

University of North Carolina Charlotte (Saritha Ramkumar)

Western Kentucky University (Ryan Boone)

2017 Data Challenge FINALISTS

Carnegie Mellon University Australia (Huijun Wang)

Loyola University Chicago (Teresa Davies)

NIDA Thailand (Suthee Promsena)

North Carolina State University (Brian Brown)

University of Alabama (Chris Painter)

University of North Carolina Charlotte (Shivam Thanvi)

University of North Carolina Charlotte (Vinaya Tinguria)