Quinlan's winning streak continues at Teradata Universe
Quinlan undergraduate students were winners at the Teradata Universe conference in Denver in October 2019.
Every year since 2014, Quinlan teams have brought home top honors from Teradata Universe, a global data analytics conference. This year, the team brought home the Student Analytics Challenge award for Best Analytics and Visualization.
The team was comprised of five undergraduate students: Grace Sperr, Nick Damato, Allison Heithoff, Varsha Kalangari, and Eric Stepanovic. They were advised by Professors Svetlozar Nestorov, Nenad Juki膰, and Abhishek Sharma.
Surprising trends in the data
The challenge: find a publicly available data set, run analytics to find insights and trends, and report the findings. The Quinlan team looked at more than 17 million bike trips between 2013 and 2018 on Divvy, Chicago鈥檚 bike sharing system, and found some surprising results.
鈥淲e found trends that show bike-sharing data reflects socioeconomic inequality in Chicago,鈥� said team member Grace Sperr. 鈥淟ow-income areas were also low ridership areas. That wasn鈥檛 at all what we were originally looking for in the data set, but every team member found the trends individually. We didn鈥檛 expect to find such strong evidence of income inequality looking at something like bike sharing.鈥�
They explored the barriers to ridership in low-income areas, such as the number of bike docks and access to trails, and highlighted the need for Divvy to develop a holistic approach to these areas.
Hard work pays off
The team had been working on the project since April 2019 for the competition in late October.
鈥淲hen we found out we won for data visualization, we were all so excited because that鈥檚 what we went for. That was our goal,鈥� said Sperr. 鈥淚 think it spoke to the curriculum in the Information Systems program and at Quinlan in general that we won. It prepares students to put their best foot forward and show what they鈥檙e capable of. It was a very rewarding and validating experience to be recognized for our work.鈥�
Grace Sperr and Nick Damato presented the team鈥檚 findings in front of a panel of judges and audience at the conference. Following the presentation, conference attendees chose 黑料门as the winner for data visualization out of six global finalists.
鈥淭he student competitions at Teradata Universe are a great opportunity for our students to showcase their deep technical knowledge, presentation skills, and teamwork,鈥� said Professor Svetlozar Nestorov. 鈥淥ur continued success is a reflection of the versatility and strength of our entire department.鈥�
Watch the presentation
Learn more
Read more about Quinlan鈥檚 history of Teradata success:
- 2018 Teradata Analytics Universe Conference →
- 2017 Teradata Partners Conference →
- 2016 Teradata Partners Conference →
- 2015 Teradata Partners Conference →
- 2014 Teradata Partners Conference →