2023/2024 Data + Society Challenge

Apply data science to solve societal problems.

All 11th and 12th graders in the Commonwealth of Virginia are invited to compete in the Data + Society Challenge.

Dean Phil Bourne meets with participants in the 2023-24 Data and Society Challenge. — Dean Phil Bourne meets with students who participated in the 2023-24 Data and Society Challenge.

The Data and Society Challenge is a competition open to all 11th and 12th grade school students in the Commonwealth of Virginia interested in learning about data science. Individuals and teams of up to 5 are encouraged to participate.

The competition is designed to raise awareness and interest in pursuing data science as a possible course of study and a career path.

The University of Virginia's School of Data Science is hosting the competition in partnership with the Academic Data Science Alliance and PredictioNN.

This year's theme was "Applying Data Science to Solve Societal Problems," and students engaged with a fair lending data science challenge.

The challenge, designed by PredictioNN, exposed them to data science methods across the four domains of data science as envisioned by the UVA School of Data Science: analytics, systems, design, and value.

Data and Society Challenge participants pose in front of UVA's Rotunda.

Winners of this year's competition were two teams and one individual student, who were awarded a monetary prize of $500 each. Mentorship was provided by the Academic Data Science Alliance.

A celebration was held on April 12 at the University of Virginia, which included presentations from faculty and alumni. Students met with Dean Phil Bourne over lunch before touring the new School of Data Science building.

Questions About the Challenge?

2023-24 Honorees

Team Rice Consumers (Albemarle High School): Jingyi Li, Isabelle Wang, and Nuolin Zheng

I like how through data science people can solve problems and find patterns from a dauntingly large set of data. I have interests in crochet, video games, and engineering. Love to my mother who always supports whatever I do. - Jingyi Li

Phil Bourne with Isabelle Wang, Jingyi Li, and Nuolin Zheng — Dean Phil Bourne is seen with Data and Society Challenge participants Isabelle Wang, Jingyi Li, and Nuolin Zheng.

Team GGG (Mills E. Godwin High School): Abhinav Tadinada, Tanish Singh, Vigneshwar Ranganathan

I developed my passion for data science over the last few years. I have conducted many research projects in fields such as physics, astronomy, and machine learning where data analysis is a crucial component. From here, I developed an interest in data science which I fostered through multiple other independent projects. I believe data science is the future of computer science because of its wide applications in numerous fields. I encourage everyone to foster an interest in data science as it is the future of computing and can be found everywhere. - Abhinav Tadinada

Yogesh Thambidurai (Academies of Loudoun)

Data science is exciting because it lets me find cool insights and trends. Turning that info into something useful is really fun and satisfying. I enjoy coding and playing video games with my friends. I hope to become a computer scientist in my future. - Yogesh Thambidurai