Acknowledgment from the
Office of the Prime Minister
Teams
Participants
Finalist Teams
About This Year's Event
The 2020 Undergraduate Big Data Challenge (BDC) and Big Data Day was revolutionized by the STEM Fellowship team to be held completely online in spite of COVID-19. This year’s theme of Personal and Public Health Decisions in a New Open Data Reality saw a diverse set of participants. There was a record-breaking number of registrations this year, with 523 participants in total, with 249 participants identifying as female, and 274 as male. The participants were joined by 48 mentors that guided and taught them. The challenge encouraged students to apply analytical and computational approaches to analyze the open data.
The Big Data Day’s Roundtable discussed “Science Communication at the time of urgent Personal and Public Health Decisions,” with Dr. Sacha Noukhovitch, the founder and president of STEM Fellowship, as the moderator. The invited panelists included: Deepak Kaura (the Chief Medical Officer for 1QBit), Suzanna Kettley (Executive Director of Canadian Science Publishing), Eleanor Haine-Bennet (Program Officer for Natural Sciences for Canadian Commission for UNESCO), and Michael Duong (Head of Personalized Healthcare Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd).
This year’s winners produced exceptional projects that explored various nuances relating to COVID-19 and more. Various projects have examined COVID-19 data to further understand the demographics of COVID-19 cases, both nationally and internationally. Some participants investigated topics ranging from the effects of social media on mental health, to COVID-19 Vulnerability in the U.S. Counties. Topics ranged from socioeconomics in health care to the significance of developing new methods for making decisions in health policies. These projects exhibited the accelerating progress of interdisciplinary research in health.
The Big Data Challenge program ultimately aims to equip students with the power of Data Science to combat the most pressing issues our world faces. The winners and finalists of the BDC are already pursuing publication and venues to implement their findings. The youth are the foundation of new changes to come and it is our passion to actively foster them synergistically with their formal education. We will continue growing this initiative and program in the years to come with even greater impact.
Panelists
Deepak Kaura
Chief Medical Officer for 1QBit
Eleanor Haine-Bennett
Program Officer for Natural Sciences for Canadian Commission for UNESCO
Suzanne Kettley
Executive Director of Canadian Science Publishing
Michael Duong
Head of Personalized Healthcare Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd
Sacha Noukhovitch
Founder and President of the STEM Fellowship
Judges
Kashif Siddiqui
kliq.ca
Dean Callahan
Hoffmann-La Roche Limited
Jodi Garner
Hoffmann-La Roche Limited
Donna Janzen
Hoffmann-La Roche Limited
Olayinka (Yinka) Awoyemi
SAS User Group
Ann Meyer
Ontario Genomics
Christopher Gravel
Health Canada
Agnes Klein
Health Canada
Sean Rourke
University of Toronto
Big Data Day Winners
Public and Personal Health Presentation Awards
1st Prize: $1500 + Publication
Leveraging Machine Learning Methods to Predict COVID-19 Vulnerability in U.S. Counties Based on Socioeconomic Factors
Katharine Emily Lee, Cynthia Denise Lo, William Ren Xu, and Robert Ye
2nd Prize: $600
Identifying COVID-19 Instagram Behaviour Patterns via a Novel Network Analysis Pipeline
Arthur Boschet, Vivian Chia-Jou Lee, Brenda Shen, and William Zhang
3rd Prize: $400
An Analysis of the COVID-19 Infodemic: The Extensive and Disproportionate Impact of Public Figures on Public Behaviour and Sentiment Towards Hydroxychloroquine
Emily Chan, Ginah Choi, Kendrew Wong, and Shirley Zeng
Public and Personal Health Decisions Research Excellence Awards
1st Prize: $1500 + Publication
An Analysis of the COVID-19 Infodemic: The Extensive and Disproportionate Impact of Public Figures on Public Behaviour and Sentiment Towards Hydroxychloroquine
Emily Chan, Ginah Choi, Kendrew Wong, and Shirley Zeng
2nd Prize: $600 + Publication
Deep learning transcriptomic model for prediction of pan-drug chemotherapeutic sensitivity
Eddie Guo, Mehul Gupta, Pouria Torabi, and Sunand Kannappan
3rd Prize: $400
Leveraging Machine Learning Methods to Predict COVID-19 Vulnerability in U.S. Counties Based on Socioeconomic Factors
Katharine Emily Lee, Cynthia Denise Lo, William Ren Xu, and Robert Ye
Public and Personal Health Innovation Award
Prize: $1000
A Convolutional Neural Network Approach for Skin Cancer Detection
Andy Dai, Yi Zhou Tang, Kevin Zhu, and Nicolaus Wong
WHAT IS THE BIG DATA CHALLENGE?
The Big Data Challenge (BDC) for undergraduate students is an inquiry-driven experiential learning program that invites students from across the country to strengthen their problem-solving and critical thinking skills while gaining familiarity with the fundamentals of data science.
DO I NEED PREVIOUS PROGRAMMING EXPERIENCE?
You do not need previous experience with programming, although it is recommended. We welcome all students who are eager to put effort into learning and expanding their skillsets, as well as those who show any level of interest in data science or the challenge topic.
HOW DO I FORM OR JOIN A TEAM?
We encourage participants to start forming teams before the event. You may also register and participate on your own or request to be placed into a team after registration.
DO I NEED TO HAVE AN IDEA FOR MY PROJECT?
Think about what interested you the most in the field of the provided topic. Reflect on your day-to-day; talk to your friends and professional network from academia and industry; explore emerging technologies and platforms; read the internet and research articles. In hackathons like these, many teams come up with their topics in the first few days of the challenge, rather than beforehand.
DOES STEM FELLOWSHIP PROVIDE TRAVEL GRANTS?
We subsidize travel expenses for our finalists to attend the Big Data Day, up to a fixed amount. You will need to fill out the following application by October 15th.
I RECENTLY GRADUATED, AM I ELIGIBLE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE UNDERGRADUATE BIG DATA CHALLENGE?
Yes, anyone who has graduated within 12 months is eligible to register for our Big Data Challenge.
Interested, but not an undergraduate student?
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