SDSC students excel in regional big data analysis contest
Student representatives from SDSC, including Team Leader ZHAO Zihang (middle) and ZHANG Jing (2nd from left), represent the winning team to receive the prize from Professor HO Tat Kei Alfred (1st from right) and Assistant Professor Dr LIU Ning (1st from left) of the Department of Public Policy, CityU at the award presentation ceremony.
A team comprising seven CityU students, five from the School of Data Science and two from the Department of Public Policy and School of Law, won the third prize (5th place) in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau College Student Public Administration Data Analysis Contest.
The award-winning project - “Priority Probing Algorithm on Spread of COVID-19” was the final work after the team participated in six rounds of “Big Data Analysis Training Camp” held from 3 November 2021 to 3 January 2022, and went through a stringent selection process. In this regional competition, our undergraduates outperformed 100 projects from higher education institutions across the Greater Bay Area. All other winning teams consist of postgraduate students and CityU has more than 10 teams participating.
These student researchers were inspired by society’s need to develop a system for computing the stationary distribution of critical node in the spread of COVID-19 through priority probing. The idea is to obtain the degree of contagion impact on confirmed cases, which aims to provide a more efficient strategy to handle the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The prize speaks loudly about CityU’s pioneering role in providing data science education to students with multi-disciplinary backgrounds,” said Professor S. Joe QIN, Dean of the School of Data Science. “I am also pleased to see that six of the seven team members are female students.”
The winners were thrilled with their win and expressed gratitude to SDSC’s faculty members including Associate Professors Dr ZHANG Qingpeng, Dr ZHANG Zijun, and Assistant Professor Dr YANG Yu who have encouraged them to enter the competition and provide full guidance with untiring support throughout the entire stage of the competition. Our students received the honour from Professor Alfred HO from the Department of Public Policy of CityU, who represented one of the co-organizers of this competition, at an online presentation ceremony that took place on 14 January 2022.
The students spent months working really hard on the project. This award is the recognition of their collective intelligence and acknowledgment of the values of their innovation and inspiration. Let’s give them a big applaud!
