Students of the UCU Master’s Program “Data Science” took the second and third places in the final of the international contest Queen’s International Innovation Challenge, which was held in Toronto, Canada. Recall that our students traditionally take part in this competition: in 2016 they took third place, and last year – won the competition.

Urban_intelligence team, third place:

• Dmitri Glushko
• Serhii Hulko
• Kostyantyn Ovchynnikov
• Ivan Prodaiko
• Serhii Tiutiunnyk

Ucunians team, second place:

• Dmytro Babenko
• Vadym Korshunov
• Yaroslava Lochman
• Yevhen Pozdniakov
• Anton Shcherbyna

Our students shared their impressions.

Impressions are very positive, it’s a hard to believe that eventually, we took second place. Because when the competition started (in September), at all, we did not understand how it is possible to take part in such a competition. I had to leave my comfort zone, but it was a very cool experience.

Difficulty: Perhaps the most difficult thing was to build a team. The competition was announced in the first week of studying when we barely knew each other in person. But, in the end, a very cool team was formed.

The second biggest problem was to start doing something when we did not realize what needed. After all, we were simply said: “You must take part in the competition, the theme is “Smart city” “.

Of course, Olexandr Romanko (lecturer Introduction to Data Science) and Olexii Molchanovskyi (academic director of the master’s program) tried to help, but the experience of last year’s winner’s team “Seat & Eat” was the most useful. We also consulted a lot with Orest Kupin (a graduate of the program in 2018), who has extensive experience in this case.

Emotions: I really wanted to win, but I was happy with the second place because the winners really had the best presentation of the idea.

Obstacles: Before starting the competition, it’s important to believe that the win is absolutely real!  But also it is important to allocate time to the competition, because in a dense schedule of studying and work, it can be very difficult.

Advantages: Everything is easy here – we saw Toronto and some other parts of Canada. Students from Toronto and Queen’s University were also able to compare our knowledge and experience. Got a good professional and life experience. Well, in the end, we earned a little money 🙂