Almost 100 students from seven universities participated in the Fusionex Data Challenge over the weekend. The hackathon event saw its participants working late into Saturday night and presenting their pitch on Sunday morning. From a crowded field of 32 competing groups, prizes were awarded to the top five groups for their display of creativity and innovative excellence.

All five groups went home with cash prizes, offers for professional training courses, and reward points for redeeming discounted deals on 8excite. Team O(1) from Monash University emerged as the champion whose members Alvin Tan Jian Jia, Lim Tai Jie, and Lau Zhe Yu received a total of RM9,600 in prizes, including RM3,000 in cash, a professional training course worth RM6,000, and RM600 worth of 8excite reward points.

All five groups were also immediately shortlisted to pursue their careers with Fusionex to develop revolutionary and cutting-edge technologies that will help enhance and transform industries. They will also be treated to the Superhero Experience of exploring Fusionex’s Office of Superheroes, which won the ‘Most Innovative and Sustainable Design’ award at the Asia Recruitment Awards 2019.

The Data Challenge was held at the Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation (APU) in Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur. Venue sponsor and co-organizer APU sent 16 teams of its students to take part in the hackathon while other participants came from Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Multimedia University (MMU), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College (TARUC), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), and Monash University Malaysia

The participating students were given a day-long training session one week prior to the hackathon, where they received coaching on Fusionex’s flagship Big Data platform, Fusionex GIANT, as well as Python Notebook Training, and Visual Pack Development. During the actual event, participants were given guidance and mentoring by subject matter experts from Fusionex.

Fusionex founder and group CEO Dato’ Seri Ivan Teh said, “We are elated to be co-organizing this hackathon alongside APU, which is a great academia partner, as we look to nurture the talents of university students. As a modern and visionary company, Fusionex makes continuous efforts to guide youths towards their career paths and future. We hope this competition will spur students to create even more innovative digital and data-driven solutions that will help advance many industries for the future.”

Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation Deputy Vice Chancellor, Prof Dr Ir Ts Vinesh Thiruchelvam said, “Fusionex has been a vital industry-academia partner to APU in driving big data education in Malaysia. APU was the first to produce pure data science graduates in Malaysia and continues to leverage on its industry driven data science curriculums and programmes. The industry content allows APU data science graduates to be industry ready and employable immediately post-graduation.”

Source: Yahoo Finance, Bernama