Oklahoma State University: OSU MS BAnDS Students Earn First Place At The University Of South Carolina's National Bi ...

Press release from Oklahoma State University:

2022-02-11

A group of Oklahoma State University business analytics students placed first out
of 16 teams at the Big Data Case Competition Feb. 4-6 prior to the University of South
Carolina’s National Big Data Health Science Conference.

Max Griffin, Abbas Kalbe Agharia, Sristhi Srivastava and Kalpesh Mulye — master’s
students in the business analytics and data science program — competed virtually and
were one of six teams advancing to the finals, eventually earning first place and
the $4,000 prize that came with it.

“This competition verged on cruel and unusual punishment but winning was gratifying
and a reflection of our extreme efforts,” Griffin said. “It’s an honor to be part
of the first team from our program to win such a prestigious and difficult competition.
Thank you to my teammates Kalbe, Srishti and Kalpesh, whose work was incredible even
in the extreme conditions we faced on night two, when none of us had slept any significant
amount since Friday morning.”

The South Carolina competition provides teams of graduate and senior undergraduate
students the opportunity to apply their knowledge to the analysis of big data sets
in healthcare. Participating team are given the same business problem, data sets and
access to software to solve a challenging program using a data analytics approach.

“The competition was time sensitive hence we had to be careful in what kind of problems
we want to dedicate our time and energy to,” said Agharia. “This is very similar to
real life scenarios where the c-suite might want an urgent analysis on a time sensitive
problem. This helped us to focus our business problem and helped the team create a
concrete plan. Our team worked incredibly well in the sense we each knew our strengths
and dedicated our energy in an efficient and synergic manner. I think that is what
set us apart from the other teams.”

A panel of industry and academic experts judge the presentations based on the team’s
use of the full analytics process, from framing the problem to methodology selection,
data use, model building and innovation.

“I am delighted that our team won this prestigious competition by placing ahead of
teams from schools such as Yale, Connecticut and many others,” said Dr. Goutam Chakraborty,
SAS Professor of Marketing Analytics and director of the MS in Business Analytics and Data Science program. “This is one of the best validations of the strength and capabilities of our programs
and the credit goes to the hard-working students and all of the dedicated faculty
who have prepared them to perform well in such types of national events.”

This press release was produced by Oklahoma State University. The views expressed here are the author’s own.