At the end of September, seven finalists from Belgium, France, Italy, Austria and the USA presented their solutions to an expert Jury headed by Dr. Gerhard Pirker (Head of the area “Simulation & Validation” at the LEC). Subsequently, the three best solutions were selected.

The three winners of the LEC Data Challenge 2019 are:

1st prize endowed with 3.000 Euro:
Feng Xu from Belgium

2nd prize endowed with 2.000 Euro:
Mario Kahlhofer from Austria

3rd prize endowed with 1.000 Euro:
Team Christine Ning and Daniel Lang from Austria

The young data analysts received their prizes at the conference “The Working Process of the Internal Combustion Engine” in Graz at the end of September.

Winner Feng Xu about the LEC Data Challenge:
„For me, the trip was already good when the award ceremony took place. Of course winning the first prize makes this already good trip perfect.”

Concerning the challenge itself, he says: „The dataset provided is relatively small in this ‘Big Data’ era and it somehow makes this challenge very fun. With a small dataset it is much easier to get started with the analysis. Yet it provides a possibility for alternative solutions, which has been demonstrated by the variety of the solutions presented by the participants. For me it has been more challenging to tell which data points are ‘normal’.

“It was very exciting to see how data-driven analysts from other disciplines approach our problems. Of course, it’s also good for us from an HR point of view to interest young analysts in our research topics,” said Andreas Wimmer, head of the LEC.

Dr. Wolfram Rossegger of KS Engineers, sponsor of the 1st prize, says: “We are more than satisfied with the LEC Data Challenge. It’s great what ideas and skills the participants have.”