Smith Grad Students Participate in Data Jam

Brett Hunniecutt, Smith MBA Candidate 2017, writes about the inaugural Data Jam at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business in April 2017.

On two consecutive Fridays in April 2017, students from the full-time MBA, MS in information systems and MS in marketing analytics programs competed in the first Data Jam at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. A Data Jam is a competition in which participants are given a data set and a prompt before being let loose to apply all their creativity and analytical prowess to the problem.

For this inaugural Data Jam the data set came from VitusVet, a startup co-founded by two Smith EMBA alumni: Mark Olcott and Kalpesh Raval. The prompt directed the students to apply any model or analytical framework they chose in order to solve the business problems VitusVet faced as a tech startup growing its user base using the data set given.

The teams presented to the founders a week after kickoff on Friday, April 14. All teams gave incredible presentations and the multitude of creative approaches wowed the founders. A team of first-year MBA students won first place. Those students – Jose Cacho Eleta, Robert Ginsberg and Baani Chandok –  took home the $300 prize and the trophy. Second place received a prize of $100, which went to a second-year MBA team composed of Harpreet Ghuman, Muhammad Khan, Andres Gonzalez, and Alison Duncan.

For more information about graduate programs at Smith, visit: www.rhsmith.umd.edu/programs.