Leading the charge for real-world change in annual SAS Hackathon
28 June 2023
News
Commencing earlier this year, the SAS 2023 Hackathon aims to inspire 104 teams from 74 countries to be curious and passionate; to invent something new that could change our daily lives, the way we do business, or approach humanitarian causes. South Africa has two teams, from Absa and Dake Solutions, participating in this prestigious event this year, which reinforces the country’s commitment to finding innovative, data-driven ways of overcoming the pressing issues facing local markets.
The annual Hackathon is seeing 530 hackers and 140 organisations, spanning nine industries, participate using the SAS Viya artificial intelligence (AI)-based automation platform. SAS Viya is making it possible for participants to integrate teams and technology, thereby enabling all types of SAS and open-source users to collaborate.
The Hackathon is structured in such a way that teams receive the means through SAS technology to transform use cases from ideas to reality. The intention is to stimulate further creative solutions among participating organisations.
The Hackathon proper ran from 15 March to 12 April, with jury voting taking place throughout April and May. In June, the regional winners will be announced, while September will see the overall global winner announced at SAS Explore: An Analytics Experience for Technologists.
ExCreLo, the Absa team, has focused on an RWA Movement Analyser that features abstraction capability to ‘any’ number and ‘any’ domain. This is due to standardisation concepts introduced across base data profiling, and incorporates modelling data preparation, the development of the model using machine learning techniques, and visualisation based on model drivers per modelling outcome. Additionally, a bias analysis is also included.
For its part, Prophetic Packers, the Dake Solutions team, has focused on the integration of advanced data analytics, AI and IoT in manufacturing, with specific applications in packaging prediction on various scales, and environmental IoT for goods transport and safety.
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