Hyderabad, October 30, 2017 – Invesco Ltd. (NYSE: IVZ) hosted a 24-Hour Hackathon event at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) for post graduate students that began on 28 October 2017 and ended on 29 October 2017. The event was designed to present a predictive analytics challenge in which students in the Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and cognitive science disciplines could apply their studies for practical, real-world applications.
Fifty Two (52) participants were asked to build a functional predictive analytics model to incorporate high-dimensional data points to build strategies to accurately inform different desired business outcomes. The 24-Hour time limit forces participants to operate under time constraints, and the abbreviated project timeline encourages imagination, innovation, productivity and output in a short amount of time.
First Prize – MCA Marvels
There are mutual benefits for the firm and for the students involved. The students get to use and demonstrate the skill sets they’ve accumulated during their university studies, while Invesco gets exposure to the local community showcasing the emerging and disruptive technology projects shaping the new business and economic landscape the company is focusing on as they mature into the digital and data era.
“While the idea of the 24-Hour format is daunting and intimidating at first, we find that it also ends up being a lot of fun. It’s a good way to get quality output in an accelerated time, and we were excited to see what the students at UoH could produce given their constraints,” said Swaroopa Akula, Head of Technology Services, Invesco Hyderabad.
Second Prize – Prototype
The winning participants were awarded cash prizes for their efforts on 30th October 2017 in the presence of Prof. Appa Rao Podile, Vice-Chancellor, UoH; Prof. Arun Agarwal, Dean, School of Computer and Information Sciences (SCIS) and other faculty members of the SCIS. The first prize was won by team MCA Marvels led by Ankit Aabad and comprising of Mohd. Waseel K, Abhay Kumar, Yashmi Dhiman, Prafull Bajpai. They were awarded Rs:40,000/-. The second prize was won by team Prototype led by Bhaskar Dhariyal and comprising of Rohit Gavval, Krishna Chaitanya, V Naveen, N Rana Pratap Reddy. They were awarded Rs:20,000/-. The third prize was won by team Straw Hats led by Shamik Chakrabarty and comprising of Ujjwal Kumar, Taarak Rapolu, Krishna V Desabhotla, Vikash Ranjan, G Mohan Krishna. They were awarded Rs:10,000/-.
Third Prize – Straw Hats
Here is what the Academia from UoH, School of Computer and Information Sciences had to say about the event. “In the recent past students of School of Computer and Information Sciences have participated in many Hackathons at National level and won prices also, for us this hackathon is special since students were solving the problems coming from Invesco’s core business. This gave students an exposure to enhance problem-solving capabilities in real businesses, to work as a team and meet deadlines”.