Michigan Ross Datathon 2020

Presented by the Center for Value Chain Innovation

In partnership with the University of Michigan Ross School of Business

Thursday, February 13th - Friday, February 14th

"Datathon was one of the greatest experiences in my MBA life ... the competition allowed me to discover my real potential."
- 2020 Datathon Participant
“The Datathon was a great event to not only practice our technical skills, but to combine our technical and business skills to come up with our solution. It was really cool to be working on a real business problem with real data that everyone could relate to. It was a perfect example of a problem a business would face in the real world.”
- 2020 Datathon Participant
Registration Closed

Datathon 2020

The Michigan Ross Datathon 2020, organized by the Ross Center for Value Chain Innovation, came to a close on Friday, February 14th. More than 140 Ross students competed and worked diligently in their teams throughout the day analyzing large datasets of University of Michigan Athletics ticket sales. Their goal was to help Michigan Athletics effectively sell football tickets so that all home games are sold out and there is sufficient revenue for Michigan Athletics to continue being the premier college athletics program in the country. Fueled by an endless supply of food and coffee, teams of 4 students cleaned, explored, visualized and analyzed large datasets to define appropriate questions and develop their recommendations.

Presentations by the top six teams were evaluated by an expert panel of judges from our corporate sponsors: Llamasoft, Deloitte, umlaut; and our partners: Michigan Athletics and the Paton Center. Giant checks were awarded to the winning teams and Associate Dean Jerry Davis delivered concluding remarks.

Winners

Congratulations to the winning team:

The Over(ly) Fit Models

Julia Averbuch, Quinn Favret, Alexander Hedge (All BBAs).

They collected a check for $5,000 along with suite tickets for the Michigan Hockey game this weekend.

Second place team:

Friends-athon

Shanza Raza (FTMBA), Jeremy Ward (FTMBA), Lilia Zhu (MiB, LSA), and Caleb Idiaghe (FTMBA).

Award: $3,000 and a football signed by Jim Harbaugh.

Third place team:

Zack and the Beanstalk

Sunhwi Kim (FTMBA), Zack Lim (GMBA/MSI), Jay Park (FTMBA), Jimmy Park (FTMBA).

Award: $2,000.

Pictures

Datathon 2019

The Michigan Ross Datathon 2019, organized by the Ross Center for Value Chain Innovation, came to a close on Fri Feb 22nd. The event was a even more successful than the inaugural 2018 edition - about 200 Ross students registered, ~140 Ross students, from all degree programs, were shortlisted to form 35 teams that spent the day building their data based solution built around county level data of water usage, water pollution, industrial and demographic concentration and quality of life. Fueled by an endless supply of food and coffee, teams of 4 students cleaned, explored, visualized and analyzed large datasets to define appropriate questions and develop their recommendations.

Presentations by the top six teams were evaluated by an expert panel of judges from our corporate sponsors: E&Y, Llamasoft, Deloitte, PWC, Cummins, and Stryker; and our partners: Correlation-One and the Paton Center along with our faculty judges: Dean Scott DeRue and Prof Ravi Anupindi. Dean Scott DeRue delivered concluding remarks and distributed giant (literally!) checks to the winning teams.

Winners

First Place Team

Team Knights of the Round Tableau

Ronak Patel, Yiyan Kang, John Strainer Jr.

Second Place Team

Team FAB

Gunjan Jain, Daniel Vergara Ramirez, Giuliana Sanchez Lopez and Edwin Llancce Carrion

Third Place Team

Team Undatable

Akash Khare, Maxwell Klaben, Christina Puder, and Jake Gandolfo

Pictures

"Our analysis really matters for making an impact. There’s a lot on the line and being able to apply it in a real-life setting, that was the fun part of it"
- Datathon 2019 Winning Team

Datathon 2018

The Inaugural Michigan Ross Datathon, organized by the Ross Center for Value Chain Innovation, came to a close on Friday, April 13th, 2018. The event was a smashing success - about 100 Ross students, from all degree programs, spent the day building their data-based solution to a business problem focused on the Airline industry. Fueled by endless supplies of food and coffee, teams of 4-5 students cleaned, explored, visualized, and analyzed large data sets to define appropriate questions and develop their recommendations.

Presentations by the top six teams were evaluated by an expert panel of judges from our corporate sponsors: E&Y and Llamasoft; and our partner: Correlation-One. Associate Dean Professor M.S. Krishnan delivered concluding remarks and distributed giant (literally!) checks to the winning teams.

Winners

First Place Team

Maaz Khalid, Caroline Hodge, Nikhil Kalambur, Jonathan Hochberg

Second Place Team

Olivia Ma, Sijie Cheng, Christopher Demundo, Alex Gutman

Third Place Team

Fernando Santo Andre, John McGrail, Mark Cullen, Cherish Anderson, Jyoty Subramanian

Pictures

Student Experience

"The Datathon exemplified Ross' leadership in action-based learning."
- Datathon Participant
"Highlight of the semester!"
- Datathon Participant

Sponsors

A big thanks to our 2019 sponsors:

Center for Value Chain Innovation

The Center for Value Chain Innovation partners with industry to promote greater innovation and excellence in value chains through interdisciplinary research, thought leadership, education, and a proliferation of ideas that address critical business and societal issues. The CVCI provides solutions to the most significant value chain issues facing businesses today, from technology & business ecosystem innovation to value chain management to emerging market ecosystems to healthcare & live sciences value chains.

Dr. Ravi Anupindi, CVCI Faculty Director

Ravi Anupindi is Colonel William G. and Ann C. Svetlich Professor of Operations Research and Management at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, as well as founding Faculty Director of the Center for Value Chain Innovation. His main research areas include value chain innovation, technology and business innovation; supply chain management; strategic sourcing; supply chain risk management; lean operations; supply chain sustainability; value chains for economic development and health care delivery in low and middle income countries. His current work includes decision models for commodity operations, supply chain risk management, emerging markets supply chains, resource allocation for malaria interventions, and a study of models of TB treatment and health market innovations.

FAQ

When will registration start?

Registration will open on January 8th, 2020.

When will registration close?

Registration will be open until February 3rd, 2020.

What experience is needed?

No experience needed as a pre-requisite - although to do well in the competition, students have found skills in one or more of Excel, Tableau, R, Python, etc. to be useful.

Is there an application process?

There will be a small, multiple choice screening test that all registrants will be asked to take. In case registrations exceed our capacity then we will use the test results to limit participation.

I'm not a Ross student - can I still participate?

Non-Ross students are welcome as a part of a group with Ross students.

Do I need to register with a team?

Each participant needs to register individually. If you have a team, great - you will be able to work with your team! If you don't have a team, you can be placed in a team of other solo participants.

Where will my team work during the Datathon?

We will provide a shared space for all teams to work in. The rooms will have food and drink provided as well as access to Datathon organizers and industry experts in case you have any questions as you work.

For any further questions, please email Sanjeev Kumar, Faculty Coordinator for Datathon 2020, at sankum@umich.edu.