Stuart Marketing Analytics Students Earn High Marks in Global Analytics Competition
SSB Hawks, a team of three graduate students at Illinois Institute of Technology’s Stuart School of Business, achieved the ninth-highest score in the 2023 Curiosity Cup, a global analytics competition sponsored by the analytics software firm SAS. The team’s score just missed the threshold required to advance to the finals of this year’s contest, which drew 52 teams from 16 countries.
The Curiosity Cup tests students’ real-world data science and analytics skills. Each team submits a scientific paper detailing the results of a data analysis project that they have conducted using a publicly available data set and SAS software. A panel of analytics industry consultants evaluates and scores the entries. Teams that score high enough to advance also prepare video presentations of their projects for the final round of the competition.
The members of SSB Hawks, all of whom are in Stuart’s Master of Science in Marketing Analytics program, are Pankhuri Juvekar, Ujwala Lolakrishnaiah, and Ayushi Thakkar. Assistant Professor of Marketing Dinakar Jayarajan served as the team’s faculty adviser. The trio of students formed SSB Hawks after taking Jayarajan’s Quantitative Marketing Models course, which provided the background knowledge and skills that they needed to take on the Curiosity Cup challenge.
The competition proved to be an ideal opportunity to apply what they had learned in the classroom, to gain experience in time management, and to work on a complex group project, according to the three teammates. They also emphasized the valuable guidance and extra help provided by Jayarajan throughout their work on the project.
“We were faced with a steep learning curve, but we gained a wealth of knowledge on data management and manipulation,” says Juvekar. “It was during the modeling phase that we gleaned the most valuable insights and learned to adapt to every aspect of the data.”
“I had the chance to work on real-world data issues and was exposed to fresh concepts and methods,” Lolakrishnaiah says. “Finding creative solutions to real-world data problems was extremely intriguing and enjoyable.”
Photo: [From left] Pankhuri Juvekar, Ujwala Lolakrishnaiah, and Ayushi Thakkar (provided)
