KUCHING – Master of Science students Yakub Sebastian, Wendy Japutra Jap and Lai Chee Ping were awarded first runner-up of the SAS-EON Bank Group Knowledge Discovery Challenge (KDC) 2010, which was held at Sunway University College recently.
Universiti Teknologi Mara Shah Alam emerged winner while third prize went to Sunway University College.
“The five judges commented that our data analysis and interpretation were strong. They also liked our presentation. However, UiTM Shah Alam managed to come up with a better marketing strategy proposal, an area where we were lacking. Overall, it has been another fruitful experience for us,” said Yakub.
KDC 2010 challenges students in the areas of data mining and business planning by utilizing SAS Enterprise Miner software package. Participants were given one month to analyse banking data sets and recommend effective solutions to solve hypothetical banking problems. Finalists were selected to present their analyses and business proposals in front of a panel of expert judges from the industry and academics.
The KDC attracted submissions by 30 teams from eight SAS-licensing universities in Malaysia, of which only the top five teams made it to the final round.
The first prize winners were offered employment contract under EON Bank’s management associate programme.
“Through this competition, we had the chance to experience what a real world knowledge discovery project is like. The competition also enhanced our understanding of the interplay between various factors in real world business analytics which are not normally covered in classrooms”, said Wendy.
“We can see that the demands for expertise in business intelligence and data mining are growing rapidly in Malaysia, especially among banking and financial sectors. Swinburne (Sarawak) is on the right track by developing such expertise among its graduate students,” said Yakub.
Besides oral presentation, the team also came up with a poster presentation to, among others, the Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Higher Education, CEO of EON Bank Group, Managing Director of SAS Malaysia, and CEO of Sunway Group.