The closing ceremony of the biggest platform for Data Scientists and Data Engineers to showcase their talent in the country, Datathon 2.0 was held at a city hotel on Wednesday.
The Datathon competition was organized by the country’s leading digital operator Robi. Datathon 2.0 was powered by ‘AWS’ (Amazon Web Services), ‘Huawei’ was the platinum sponsor, and ‘Brain station’ was the cloud expertise partner, reads a press release.
Team Instinct was adjudged as the champion team of the competition. The first runner-up position was secured by a team named, Numpy, while the second runner-up position was held by another team named, Viking Raiders.
The champion team won two lakh taka prize money, while the first and the second runner-up teams walked away with one and a half lakh and one lakh taka respectively.
Nuren Shams and Yeaminur Rahman received one lakh taka each for being the best Data Engineers in the competition. Abdul Basit and Partho Ghosh were recognized as the best Data Scientists in the Datathon 2.0 competition and received one lakh taka each as prize money.
Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Division Mustafa Jabbar handed over prizes to the winners of the competition as the chief guest. Deputy Minister, Ministry of Education, Mohibul Hassan Chowdhury, and Malaysian High Commissioner to Bangladesh, HaznahMdHashim were present on the occasion as special guests.
CEO of Huawei Technologies (Bangladesh) Peter Pan Junfeng was also present at the closing ceremony.
More than 2,800 participants from 11 countries took part in the Datathon 2.0 competition. Following a tough competition, 100 participants took part in the final round grouped into 25 teams. The top 25 teams then battled it out in a rigorous two-day hackathon.
Internationally renowned Data Science and AI practitioners were part of the Grand Jury.
Grand Jury included Professor Paul Morrissey, Global Ambassador, AI/BDA TM Forum, MdAnowarulArif Khan, Results Management Expert, Aspire to Innovate (a2i), RamanaJampala, President & CEO, AVLINO, Huang Weiming, Head of Marketing and Solution Sales, Cloud Department, Huawei Technologies (Bangladesh), and Mohammad Arif, Data Scientist, Cognizant.
Speaking on the occasion, Mustafa Jabbar said: “Data can be far more precious than oil and gold, but we need to have Data Scientists and Data Engineers who can elevate the worth of data to that level. I thank Robi for addressing this fundamental issue by organizing the Datathon 2.0 competition. I will urge other operators to follow Robi’s lead in implementing the vision of Smart Bangladesh.”
Mohibul Hassan Chowdhoury said: “We need to have a fresh perspective on our education system so that we can create the human resources who can benefit from the digitization of the society. Datathon 2.0 competition has certainly generated momentum in this regard across the country; I thank Robi for this time befitting initiative.”
Robi’s Acting CEO, and Chief Financial Officer, M Riyaaz Rasheed said: “The digital economy we are creating for a Smart Bangladesh will require skilled Data Scientists and Data Engineers. As the leading digital operator, Robi is proud to have taken up this cause by organizing the Datathon 2.0 competition. We believe Datathon 2.0 has already evolved into the epicentre of the Data Science and Data Engineer community. We thank all the participants, the partner organizations and our esteemed judges for making it happen.”
A panel discussion titled “Data Science for Smart Bangladesh” was also held at the closing ceremony. Professor Mohammad Kaykobad, PhD, Distinguished Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Brac University, Dr Syed Ferhat Anwar, Chief Advisor of Bangladesh Brand Forum, Russell T Ahmed, President, Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (Basis), and Ruhul Amin, Chief Strategy Officer, Robi Axiata Limited took part in the panel discussion.
The panel discussion was moderated by ShahedAlam, Chief Corporate and Regulatory Officer, Robi Axiata.
