Summit & UMD Host Third Annual DC DataFest

Last weekend, Summit hosted the third annual Washington, DC-area American Statistical Association DataFest™ with the University of Maryland. The yearly competition brought together more than ten teams from 6 local colleges and universities to analyze the same set of data and brainstorm unique ways to use and present it. 

The weekend-long event was made possible by generous sponsorships by Abt Associates, Google, University of Maryland's Joint Program in Survey Methodology (JPSM), MITRE, UMD's College of Information Studies, and the DC Chapter of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR).

Kicking Off The Competition

On Friday night, Summit Principal Albert Lee welcomed the teams as they received their data. After the reception, teams spent hours in Summit's break out rooms planning how they were going to analyze the data and present it to the judges on Sunday afternoon. 

Working Hard to Analyze The Data

On Saturday morning, Summit Senior Consultant David Kretch spoke to the teams about how to tell a compelling story with data, and the questions you should be asking about data sets. 

Saturday night, teams heard from Summit Analyst Alex Melton, who gave a presentation on data story telling and visulization

Teams were also able to speak to to JPSM Director Frauke Kreuter, who was working with DataFest Germany. 

The Results Are In

On Sunday, each of the teams had no more than five minutes to present to the panel of judges. This year's judges included Dr. Ed Dieterle of Summit, Dr. Rick Valliant of JPSM, Dr. Paul Scanlon of DC AAPOR, Mario Bazan of Abt Associates, and Dr. Jon Cline of MITRE. 

Showcasing their collaborative skills and analytical prowess, three teams took home awards at the end of the weekend. Alternative Stats, a team from The George Washington University, won the award for Best Use of Outside Data. GW Stat took home the prize for Best Data Visualization. The award for Best Insight went to Math Less Traveled, a team from the University of Maryland. 

Thanks to all our sponsors, VIP Consultants, and teams for making this year's DataFest such a success!