Sports and data worlds team up for community Hackathon

Monday, November 12, 2018

Sports teams – real or fantasy – could learn from what teams of students, faculty and community members developed during an E-sports hackathon on Nov. 9 and 10.

The E-sports Data Hackathon was organized in partnership among Krannert School of Management’s Business Information and Analytics Center, Discovery Park, Integrated Data Science Initiative (IDSI), and SportsUNITED. The 24-hour event was a way for people to collaboratively work together using software programs and analytics to solve problems facing businesses and industries.

Participants used cutting-edge technology and tools – including machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP), among others – to develop innovative data solutions that solve problems for data visualizations and predictive analytics to support fan experience, e-athlete training and performance.

While this was not the first hackathon at Purdue, it was the first time sports has been the event’s main theme. This event was open to students from any major on campus as well as to corporate teams that included a minimum of three Purdue students.

“This event was organized to celebrate the 150-year anniversary. One of the university’s objective is to become recognized as a leader in analytics,” says Karthik N. Kannan, the Thomas Howatt Chaired Professor in Management and director of Krannert’s Business Information and Analytics Center. “Many of our students are competent with data. As research scholars, we are making an impact on real-world problems using analytics. The connection to companies often times positions us uniquely when we teach our students. Events such as this hackathon truly showcase the student side.”

The first-place winners, Team TSM, received a cash prize of $4,000, as well as an off-season behind-the-scenes tour of the Indianapolis Colts’ headquarters and a meeting with their data analysts. A prize of $1,500 was awarded to the second-place team, while another student receive $500 as the Executive Presence Award recipient.

This was one of many events celebrating Purdue’s Sesquicentennial, 150 Years of Giant Leaps. This yearlong celebration is highlighting Purdue’s remarkable history of giant leaps, while focusing on what giant leaps Purdue can take to address the world’s problems.