Posted April 1, 2020

COVID-19 couldn’t keep them down as Minnesota State Mankato students were among 200 students gathering virtually this past weekend for this year’s Midwest Undergraduate Data Analytics Competition.

Students representing 50 teams from across the Midwest competed online at the event hosted by Minnesota State Mankato.

University had students representing the College of Science and Engineering and Technology, College of Business and College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

This was the second consecutive year that the University hosted the event.

Rajeev Bukralia, associate professor of computer information science and one of the organizers of this year’s event, said teams competed to solve a rigorous data problem related to civil rights court dockets. About 75 judges from the industry, governmental agencies, and academia participated.

He added that the big difference was this year’s 24-hour competition was conducted completely online.

Emily Frederick, director of marketing and communications for CSET, said the weekend was notable because of the rapid program changes forced by campus closures due to COVID-19.

“What makes this unique is that it’s a 24-hour competition. Normally the competition would take place on campus. However, this year they went virtual,” she said. “It was really a successful event and it was a huge accomplishment to pivot this large of a competition to virtual last minute.”

Results of the competition are expected to be announced next week.