A team of Clarkson University students won third place at the First Annual Business Analytics Conference and Competition, this spring.

Dylan Dawson ’15 of Lake Clear, N.Y., and Donald Dish ‘17of Stamford, Conn., competed with participants from 12 other colleges and universities from across the nation at Manhattan College. Teams of two to four undergraduate students went head-to-head in the contest that honed their knowledge of analytics. They were judged by a panel of faculty advisers, field experts and industry leaders.

The team won $500 and a certificate for their third place finish. Faculty adviser Boris Jukic, professor of operations and information systems and director of business analytics, said both Dawson and Disha are good students and the competition was a big confidence boost for them.

“It was quite encouraging to see that we’re on the right track and what we teach is relevant, applicable and current in this emerging field of data analytics,” he said.

Student teams began preparing for the first phase of the competition earlier in the spring semester when they created posters based on data and questions that were made available to the competitors. They presented their work to judges during a poster session at the conference.

After the poster presentations, teams were provided with additional questions and data then asked to present their solutions to a panel of faculty advisers as well as practitioners representing various industries and employers.

Teams were ranked by their combined scores.                                                              

 “We’re looking forward to going again next year and I believe that this particular type of competition in these types of skills is going to be prominent and in-demand in the years to come,” Jukic said.

Source: http://www.clarkson.edu