SAS Competition for Top Data Scientist in UK, Ireland
The contest, open to the academic and business communities, aims to find UK and Ireland best talent in analytics and data science. The goal is to produce an innovative forecast of energy demand.
31 March 2014 - London, UK. SAS, the global leader in business analytics software and services, has launched its first data scientist competition in the UK & Ireland. Open to the academic and business communities, the contest aims to find the country's best candidate who can demonstrate a breadth of skills in the use of analytics, innovation and data to deliver better insight and make a valuable contribution to their community.
The competition is open to undergraduates, postgraduates and business professionals. Entrants will be able to access a defined set of open data sources, available for analysis within the SAS Academic Cloud.
The challenge is to produce an innovative forecast of energy demand, using open data from the UK government to forecast the number of terawatt hours of electricity likely to be consumed in the UK by 2020. The judges are looking for written submissions and a video presentation; the more interesting and more visual the better. The winner will be announced as the SAS UK & Ireland Data Scientist of the Year. They will receive a unique 3D model of their results, a trip to a SAS Conference in the USA and an opportunity to present at the UK SAS Professionals Conference in 2015.
The Rt Hon Liam Fox, former cabinet minister, and a member of the Top Data Scientist judging panel commented: "Understanding data trends will provide the UK with unrivaled opportunities to address some of the most critical issues facing our society, whether that's the economy, supporting an ageing population or how to tackle the energy crisis.
"The UK is currently faced with a dearth of critical data skills and we need more individuals with the skills to drive this change and create new opportunities. This competition is important not only to identify key talent within data science but also to force the debate around vital areas like the future of energy," concluded Fox.
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The competition is open to entries from 31 March until 7 October, 2014. For more details, please visit sas.com/uk/datascientist
