Troy, N.Y. — The Lally School of Management and the Institute for Data Exploration and Applications (IDEA) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will host 20 teams at its inaugural Business Analytics Case Competition on April 8. Undergraduate and graduate student teams from the five schools at Rensselaer will analyze a case study, utilize provided data sets, and present their innovative findings to a panel of esteemed judges at the competition.

“The Rensselaer Business Analytics Case Competition brings together students from across all academic and research disciplines who are challenged with a real-world problem in the data analytics domain,” said Dorit Nevo, associate professor of information systems at the Rensselaer Lally School of Management. “Students get to experience analytics first-hand and apply what they have learned in their courses in an exciting competition format.”

“Advances in data analytics are creating many significant transformations in the way that businesses around the world are operating,” said Professor James A. Hendler, director of the Rensselaer IDEA. “This competition gives our students an opportunity to explore problems and create solutions for tackling data-driven issues in business and research.”

The program will take place on the Rensselaer Troy campus. The teams will receive their case study at 9 a.m. in the Pittsburgh Building, room 4114. Teams will then be allotted several hours for case analysis and discussion. At 2:30 p.m., the teams will present their findings to a panel of guest judges and faculty, with a final round of the top three teams at 4:30 p.m. A dinner reception and awards presentation will follow immediately at 5:30 p.m. in the fourth-floor lobby of the Pittsburgh Building.

Students will be competing for a first-place team prize of $1,500, second-place prize of $1,000, and a third-place prize of $500. Teams can include one to three student members.

The competition is sponsored by the Rensselaer IDEA, a key component exemplifying The New Polytechnic at Rensselaer with a goal to maximize the capabilities of new tools and technologies for the purpose of expediting scientific discovery and innovation, developing the next generation of digital enablers, and preparing students to succeed and lead in a data-driven world.

IDEA serves as a hub for Rensselaer faculty, staff, and students engaged in data-driven discovery and innovation, empowering researchers with new tools and technologies to access, aggregate, and analyze data from multiple sources and in multiple formats. IDEA connects three of the university’s critical research platforms: the CCI supercomputing center (AMOS and Watson at Rensselaer), the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, and the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies.

For more information about the Lally School of Management, visit http://lallyschool.rpi.edu/.

For more information about the Rensselaer Institute for Data Exploration and Applications (IDEA), visit http://idea.rpi.edu/.

Julie K. Tracy
Lally School of Management
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
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Email: tracyj3@rpi.edu
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