Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

Main Content

Processing. Please wait.
1st place MMA Datathon 2020 participants share insights and tips

Rotman MMA hosts a yearly Datathon during the month of October. This is one of two posts about the event. You can also read about the 2020 Online Datathon and student’s experiences.

Here is what our 1st place winners, Sabrina, Caroline, Jason, Kathy and Renji (Team Aipha) had to say about the competition:

"We thought the Datathon would be a great opportunity for us to know more about Rotman and the MMA program and I did learn a lot from this experience. All five members of our team are currently enrolled in 4th year engineering programs at the University of Toronto. The Datathon has offered us a great opportunity to apply our engineering skills to solve real-life business problems and taught us how to present a technical solution in business language."  – Sabrina

“It's my first time participating in a Datathon, and I'm beyond grateful to win 1st place. I especially want to thank all my team members. We encountered a lot of difficulties throughout the whole journey, but we came through them together by continuedly putting effort and coming up with new ideas. As an engineering student, I barely had chances to solve real-life business problems and prepare a business presentation. This Datathon is a wonderful experience that offered me an opportunity to test my analytical skills and solve problems innovatively.” – Caroline

"Looking back at what our team did in the two-week window, I believe one thing that truly makes our team stand out is our efforts in understanding the case and especially our client's (Medicare) needs. At the beginning of the competition, I assume many would think this is a straightforward fraud/anomaly detection problem, but through the case and the Q&A session, we learned that it is more. The case is not just about identifying which insurance claims are fraudulent but to provide Medicare a criterion to identify what providers need to be audited given limited time and human resources. Therefore, my tip for success is to drill down to the details of the client's business objectives, to think not as a student but from a manager's perspective, and to make sure that you are delivering a comprehensive solution that addresses them all." – Jason

“I think the key to our team’s success is that we were able to identify what the case really is asking for in terms of a business setting. And I believe this is an essential skill in my future career.” – Kathy

“The best thing I learned in this Datathon is that before trying to think of any potential solutions, it is very important to identify those things that are not specified and hide inside the data. This is especially true for an analytic project as those assumptions made at the beginning would largely impact not only the way that solutions are framed but also the tenability of the final outcome.” – Renji 


 The Master of Management Analytics is designed to give students the advanced data management, analytics and communication skills needed to become an analytics professional.

© Rotman School of ManagementThe Rotman School of Management is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AASCB)