Lionel Richie Challenge Announced at Data Fest 2012

The UCLA Department of Statistics is hosting Data Fest 2012 Friday, May 4 through Sunday, May 6. Teams of undergraduate students work around-the-clock to explore a complex and rich dataset to mine it for insight and understanding. After which, each team has just 10 minutes (and two slides) to convince the judges to award them valuable prizes. The description of last year's Data Fest

Eight teams and 30 UCLA undergraduate students competed in the first DataFest, held in the Ackerman Conference Rooms on May 6 through May 8. Lieutenant Thomas Zak, Officer-in-Charge of the Los Angeles Police Department Strategic Crime Analysis Section, challenged students to analyze five years of crime report data to determine whether any discovered associations suggest policy changes to increase safety in Los Angeles.

This year Wiley donated two copies of my book, Comparing Groups, as prizes for Data Fest. I think that is pretty cool. Props to Wiley, although I suspect that they are trying to clear out shelf space. Rob asked me what students should have to do to earn them, so I suggested anything he felt, but if it involved Lionel Richie it would just be icing on the cake. This is when he announced to me that whatever it involved, it would be referred to as the Lionel Richie Challenge

Note to Rob: I will come out a judge for you in the future. This is such a great idea! I am going to try and convince the statistics department at Minnesota that they want to be involved in this as well.