2018 Dragon Datathon

What is the Dragon Datathon?

Drexel LeBow’s Dragon Datathon is a high energy, one-day event that brings together teams of undergraduate students to turn data into actionable insight. During this event, student teams work on analytics challenges using open-source datasets.

In preparation for the datathon, undergraduate students will form teams of 5-7 individuals. For the duration of the event, students have the opportunity to meticulously turn the business problem into a series of statistical questions, design a technical approach, and use data analysis and data technology skills to create solutions that solve the problem at hand.

At the conclusion of the event, teams present their projects to a panel of industry and faculty judges, outlining the data-driven insights for their business problem, the scope of their analysis, technical challenges, overall solutions, implementation plan, and expected impact.

Students use their own laptops and are given access to a computer lab with software applications such as SAS, R, and Python. Dr. Chuanren Liu, Assistant Professor, Decision Sciences and MIS, will serve as the faculty advisor overseeing the challenge.

Meals and refreshments will be provided to participants.

Preparatory Workshop

Students are strongly encouraged to participate in one of two optional workshops on Monday April 9th from 12-2 pm and Saturday April 14th from 12-2 pm in GHALL 219 to prepare for the datathon, instructed by Dr. Liu. Please email jtk92@drexel.edu if you plan to attend the workshop.

Participant Eligibility

To be eligible to participate, team members must be currently-enrolled undergraduate students that have familiarity with core techniques for business analytics, such as data mining, machine learning, and statistical modeling.

Guidelines

Participants may use any programming language.

Registration

To participate in the Datathon, all students must register by Friday, April 13 on the Drexel LeBow events calendar at lebow.drexel.edu/events.

Draft of Event Timeline

Timeline is tentative and subject to change.

Saturday, April 21, 2018 8:30 am: Team check-in in 033; breakfast available All team members must be present and checked in at least 15 minutes prior to the event kick-off at 9 am. Individuals not present for check-in will forfeit their ability to participate. 9:00 am: Event kick-off in 033; data provided to teams 12:00 pm: Working lunch in 469 (Grad Lounge) 4:15 pm: Team presentations in 408