Romanian teams in the top 100 world WiDS Datathon by Stanford University

The first three Romanian teams participating in the international competition in the field of “data science” WiDS DATATHON, organized by Think Thank 360 under the auspices of Stanford University USA, were ranked in the top 100 worldwide, out of over 800 participating teams. The WiDS Datathon contest was a premiere in Romania, bringing together participants from business, academia, government and industry and brought to the forefront Romanian teams that competed with international professionals to hone their skills in the field of data science. The theme proposed this year was climate change and green energy, with participants challenged to build innovative building energy efficiency models based on analysis of data sets provided by organizers.

Remus Racolța, Data & Analytics Manager @ ING Tech, stressed that: “My involvement in the WiDS initiative, as a mentor, brought me satisfaction, first of all, because I was able to contribute to the development and visibility of data science, a key field for the sustainable development of Romania. I believe in continuing the efforts in this direction and in Romania as a future pole of knowledge in data science ”.

Out of a total of 829 teams worldwide, the winning Romanian teams were ranked as follows:

FIRST PRIZE (No. 36 worldwide) AVERESCU team: Elena Paraschiv, Alexandru Stanciu, Andreea Dinu, Ovidiu Bica

SECOND PRIZE (37th World) AI_Cluj team: Anca Goron, Anca Marginean, Vanessa Mercea, Diana Panisoara

III PRIZE (79 world) ROSPIN Data Team: Andrada Preda, Stefania Cantaragiu, David Rusen, Dragos Ilinca

The awarding of the Romanian teams took place at the headquarters of the institution represented by the winning team – the National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics – ICI Bucharest.

“Participating in the WiDS Datathon, organized by Stanford University, was a challenge, but also a good opportunity to experience optimizations of data science-based models and to improve the proposed solutions. Also, this competition was an opportunity to be ambitious and to demonstrate, even at an international level, the fact that we have important competencies in a field of great novelty in Romania “, said the AVERESCU team.

“Being one of the few teams in the competition with a strictly female composition and for the first time in this formula, the AI ​​Cluj team, ranked 37th in the world, proved that it is possible and made efforts to have the best results. a fantastic experience, which gave us the chance to measure the pulse in the world of data science at an international level and we will certainly continue our work. of interesting challenges and discoveries ”, was the message of the AI_Cluj team.

In turn, the team of students from ROSPIN (Romanian Space Initiative) spoke about WiDS DATATHON as representing “the launch in the data science industry and the confirmation that the road started is the right one“.

Think Thank 360 and the three winning teams together with the academic partners of this year’s WiDS Datathon, the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies and the “Nicolae Bălcescu” Land Forces Academy Sibiu and ICI Bucharest, will lay the foundations of an advanced research center in the field of data science. Romania and will collaborate on projects of national interest in the field of data science.

“The public-private, academic and governmental partnership is the key to the development of the data science field in Romania and we are convinced that together we will be able to position our country on the world map in the field of data science. This year’s WiDS Datahon contest showed us once again the huge potential that Romania has in this field “, concluded Mariana Ungureanu, president of Think Thank 360.

The competition is supported by Wolters Kluwer Romania, strategic partner, Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, academic partner Romania and the University of the Land Forces Sibiu, academic partner Central Region.