Press Release
February 17, 2020, 10:30 AM EST
Synchrony and the University of Illinois Award Top Student Competitors at 2020 Datathon
Real-world data science challenge tests students’ analytics ability
Urbana, Illinois, February 17, 2020 – Synchrony (NYSE: SYF) and University of Illinois hosted its third annual Illini Stats Datathon competition from January 14 to January 16, where hundreds of Illinois students worked in teams to put their analytics skills to the test as they compete to create analytics models to solve a real-world marketing problem.
Using geographic information system data to tackle a marketing challenge to help small and medium-sized businesses, a dozen teams were selected to build an analytics model and present their ideas to a panel of judges from Synchrony, John Deere, Sandia National Laboratories, and Illinois faculty. The final six winning teams were awarded in four categories.
Synchrony and the University of Illinois awarded student winners of the 2020 Datathon, where teams worked to solve a real-world data science challenge. Pictured here: winners of the most innovative model. From L to Right: David Charles, Manager, Data-Driven Innovation, John Deere: Bo Li, Head, Department of Statistics; Rishub Podar, student winner; Liam Lutton, student winner; Andrew Ma, student winner; Ujjval Patel, Synchrony.
Synchrony and Illinois’ Illini Stats student group provided students with software training, analytics libraries, and open source toolkits prior to the competition. The students’ findings will be shared with Synchrony’s data scientists in Chicago.
Since its inception in 2017, the Datathon competition has grown to include hundreds of graduate and undergraduate students with diverse majors and backgrounds from the University of Illinois. This event builds upon Synchrony’s strong public-private partnership with the University of Illinois.
In 2018, Synchrony opened the Emerging Technology Center at the University of Illinois Research Park, which provides real-world skills for students in AI, data science, and other emerging technologies and provides a talent pipeline from one of the nation’s premier data science programs. Since 2017, Synchrony has hired 14 graduates across a range of disciplines and this spring, Synchrony has hired nearly a dozen students for paid internships at the company.
Contact:
Nicole Ward
(203) 564-6938
Nicole.Ward@syf.com
