TUN 2015 DATA CHALLENGE
Pre-registration:
Submission deadline:
Finalists notification:
April 1, 2015
June 1, 2015
July 1, 2015
Teradata University Network (TUN) is excited to announce our inaugural
Data Challenge competition. In this competition all student teams will be
provided with the same data set which they will examine, analyze,
visualize, and present their findings and results. The data is available at:
http://www.teradatauniversitynetwork.com/PARTNERS-2015/
The goal of this competition is to provide students with an opportunity to
demonstrate their data analytics and visualization skills to professionals in
the Business Analytics Community. During the 2015 Teradata PARTNERS
Conference and Expo students will have the opportunity to showcase their
findings through a formal presentations and a poster/demo session.
Event dates and location:
The 2015 Teradata PARTNERS Conference and Expo will occur in Anaheim, CA from
October 18-22, 2015. The formal and poster presentations for the TUN Data Challenge will take
place on Sunday, October 18th and Monday, October 19th.
Submission Overview:
Submissions are encouraged from college or university undergraduate and graduate students.
Submissions can be based on work done by a team or an individual.
The data set for the TUN Data Challenge is provided by Cultural Data Project (CDP) a non-for
profit organization that enables arts and cultural organizations to enter financial, programmatic and
operational data into a standardized online form. Member organizations use the CDP to produce a
variety of reports designed to help increase management capacity, identify strengths and
challenges and inform decision-making.
TUN 2015 Data Challenge submissions should consist of:
1. A presentation of 10-15 power point slides capturing the visualization and analytical work of the
team on the provided data set.
2. A 2-3 pages Executive Summary that includes:
 Abstract: Provide a brief summarization of your project (a maximum of 100 words) that
can be used for promotion at the conference.
 Problem and Motivation: Describe the problems you have addressed. Explain the
significance of the problems and your reasons for seeking a solution to the problems.
 Approaches: Describe the approaches used for examining and analyzing the data.
 Tools Utilized: Share which technologies you leveraged during your project.
 Results: Describe how the results of your work may contribute to the future success of
Cultural Data Project and their partner charities.
Submissions should answer business questions, examples of which provided by CDP are:
- What are the effects of revenue diversification: E.g. Are organizations with fewer revenue
sources less stable? Is there an optimum range for the number of revenue sources?
- What have the effects of endowments been on organizations? E.g. What are the effects of
endowments and different mixes of restricted/unrestricted endowment funds?
- What is the relationship of different types of spending (marketing, staffing) to different
revenue types?
- Do “all volunteer” organizations function differently from staffed organizations? E.g. Are
volunteer organizations as stable as staffed ones? Less so? More so?
- Details of small organizations (the largest number of organizations, by far, are under
$250,000). E.g. What can we learn about growth, stability, and the disappearance of
organizations?
In addition to submitting a presentation and executive summary, one individual from each
submission should complete the TUN Student Scholarship application which can be found on the
Teradata University Network website. The chosen finalists will present their work and findings at
the Teradata Partners Conference. Following the presentations the finalists will also showcase their
work in poster/demo format. During the poster/demo session the finalists will be provided with
space where they will display their poster and demonstrate their work using the laptop computers
to the conferences attendees.
Judging:
The TUN Selection Committee will evaluate all submissions using the following criteria: originality
and business actionability of questions and answers provided by the team’s analysis of the data
set; how compelling are the presented business and analytical arguments; quality and organization
of presentation/poster/demo materials.
Finalists will be invited to the conference where the competition will continue with students giving a
short formal presentation of their work to conference members attending the academic track.
Later in the day, students will also present their poster/demo presentations to all conference
attendees. Conference attendees will then vote for the top three teams and winners will be
recognized during an awards ceremony at the conference.
Award:
Finalists will be presented with a TUN PARTNERS Student Scholarship to cover the conference
registration fee, conference meals, and gala events. Students will be responsible for their own
travel costs.
Submission Guidelines
April 1, 2015 Pre-registration deadline
Please email the following information to: AcademicPrograms.Teradata@Teradata.com:
1. Author(s): Submissions authors do not undergo blind review, so you should include as
much of the following information as possible: name, affiliation, contact information (e.g.,
address, phone number, and email address, www address, etc.) Email is the preferred
method of contact.
2. Faculty Advisor: If applicable.
June 1, 2015 Data Challenge submission deadline
Email your Executive Summary, PowerPoint presentation, and Scholarship application to:
AcademicPrograms.Teradata@Teradata.com
Eligibility Criteria
1. Participants must be enrolled in a university or college during submission and in October, 2015.
2. Only original individual/team work/research will be accepted for consideration. If an individual
decides to submit a group work, they should acknowledgement of others contribution so there
is no plagiarism issue.
3. One student from each team must complete a TUN Student Scholarship Application.
Finalists will be notified by July 1st and receive additional guidelines for their conference presentations
and EXPO poster/demo sessions.