The corporate world is a place full of opportunities and intellects. As much as they are interested in sharing their knowledge and technologies with the general public, they are also very keen on recognizing enthusiasts in their fields. The companies continuously search for new talents and encourage them, so that the benefits will be reaped by the world as a whole. Hackathons are a trending strategy adhered by most of the companies to achieve this goal.

“Data Analytics Hackathon” in commemoration of the Tech Month, from 6th to 28th of February, was the first of its kind organized by Virtusa. It was a victory zone for the daring young statisticians of the faculty of Science, University of Colombo. The event was held at the Virtusa auditorium on the 12th of February(monday) all day long. The competitors were presented with the task of analyzing a dataset within a restricted time period as best as they see fit and present it to the judges at the end of the day. Groups of four members had to compete in a tough game with about 10 spirited teams coming from all over the nation for this open competition.

By the end of the Hackathon the most talented teams had emerged victorious, and it is of no surprise that both the winners and runners up teams were from the university of Colombo. Both teams acknowledged that their success lay with the firm data analytics skills they had acquired during their undergraduate lives.

The winners of Data Analytics Hackathon was a team of graduates who had just compete their degrees at the faculty of Science. The team members are Naveen Kularathna, Charith Amarasinghe, Sheranga Gamwasam and Maduranga Walakulu Arachchi. Three of the members are from the department of Statistics while the other had majored in IT. The team expressed their joy of winning the competition most humbly. On further note they explained how they had focused on both descriptive and advanced analyses equally and carried them out with the use of the software tools as well as with R, the much popular statistical tool.

The runners up team “Phoenix” consists of IT Major undergraduates who are currently in the fourth year. The team members are namely, Pasan Edirisinghe, Shehan Jayalath, Sahan Dabarera and Avishka Ariyaratne. The reason for their successful analysis as they recognized was approaching the data from the point of view of the company. Upon discussion about the Hackathon experience they expressed their satisfaction and delight of bringing home another vitory.

There had been a couple of more teams from the university of Colombo. It should be noted how eager and confident the undergraduates of our university are. The students excel in their academic work and they enjoy the opportunities where they get to apply the knowledge in real world challenges as well.

As the official media unit of the faculty of Science, we continuously bring to you the succes stories of the daring young scientists in the most prestigious University of the nation. As we congratulate both the winners and the runners up, we wish everyone the very best of luck in their future endeavors.

Image courtesy : Naveen Kularathna and Shehan Jayalath