Congratulations WiDS Datathon 2024 Challenge #1 winners and all global participants!
The WiDS Datathon was an exciting challenge this year, featuring over 4,100 participants from 100 countries. We’re thrilled to have 90% new participants. The challenge achieved 75% women participation, further promoting inclusivity in the field of data science.
Hear the winners discuss their results and findings in an online panel discussion.
Meet the winners:
1st place: Team Ujunwa Fatima
Adetomiwa Adedeji and Fatima Ujunwa
How did your team meet?
We met on the Kaggle WiDS discussion forum after one of us declared an interest in team finding using the hashtag #globalteamfinding.
Was your team’s biggest learning or insight participating in the challenge?
The biggest insight was learning that the pollutant features (NO2, ozone, and PM25) are significant variables for the prediction of whether a patient received a metastatic cancer diagnosis within 90 days of screening.
2nd place: Team NGMI
Chidinma Obiagwu and Iqbal Syah Akbar
How did your team meet?
We met through WiDS Datathon Slack Workspace.
Was your team’s biggest learning or insight participating in the challenge?
It was the positive impact of ensuring diversity of machine learning model ensemble on its performance.
3rd place: Team pax2m
Merin Thomas, Mounvi Podapati, Sai Pranav Baratam and Arnav Banerjee
How did your team meet?
As fresh college graduates, we met as colleagues at Wells Fargo with a shared goal of learning data science
Why did your team join the datathon?
We joined the datathon as novice learners, eager to upskill and contribute to a novel cause.
Was your team’s biggest learning or insight participating in the challenge?
Our key takeaway was uncovering the potential of machine learning in predicting vital data for life-saving applications. We’re grateful for the supportive and collaborative spirit of the Kaggle community, and we value the enhanced skills, validation, and networking opportunities gained.
Top First-Timers of the WiDS Datathon: Team Synergistic Solvers
Saima Jabeen and Sajid Shah
How did your team meet?
We are a husband-wife team passionate about computer science. We often collaborate and support each other in professional endeavors.
Why did your team join the datathon?
As the WiDS Riyadh Ambassador, I [Dr. Saima Jabeen] organized a WiDS Datathon workshop at my university, which ignited my passion to participate myself. I’m incredibly grateful to Dr. Areej Al-Wabil, the WiDS seasonal ambassador, for her invaluable guidance, mentorship, and support. She encouraged me to participate by forming a team with my husband, who also shares expertise in machine learning and data science. Participating in the datathon proved to be an incredibly valuable experience, pushing us to challenge ourselves and ascend to new heights in our data science skills.
Was your team’s biggest learning or insight participating in the challenge?
The experience of working with real-world messy data taught us the importance of feature engineering and innovative problem-solving strategies, and boosted our confidence as first-time participants in the datathon.
Top High Schooler: Team mg24
Maggie Gu
Why did you join the datathon?
I joined the WiDS Datathon to practice my data analysis coding skills and to meet others who are also interested in data science.
Was your team’s biggest learning or insight participating in the challenge?
My biggest insight from participating in this challenge is that every mistake is a chance to learn something new!
Top students: Team Drop ID – PSUT
Kareem Bllan, Nasser Al-Bess, Rama Bashar and Reem Hindi
Why did your team join the datathon?
The WiDS Datathon was a great opportunity to learn and grow through an empowering platform doing meaningful work.
Was your team’s biggest learning or insight participating in the challenge?
It was a learning curve in our careers, as a team we learned how to split the work based on our strengths and work together to improve the weaknesses.
Join us for the next datathon challenge, launching in the beginning of April 2024!
*If you have already registered for the datathon, there is no further action you need to take. If you would like to add the April challenge to your existing datathon registration please email datathon@widswordwide.org.