Spears School of Business

 

From left, Bharath Raj Muppalla, Cade Phelan, Srinivas Pramodh Kotipalli and Tharun Reddy partnered to win first place in the AI for Good: Machine Learning in 5G Challenge.

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A pair of Oklahoma State University business analytics teams made up of graduate students were among the top three finishers recently at the AI for Good: Machine Learning in 5G Challenge, sponsored by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Srinivas Pramodh Kotipalli, Bharath Raj Muppalla, Cade Phelan and Tharun Reddy, master’s students in the business analytics and data science program, competed virtually over the span of several months and won first place, along with 1,000 Swiss francs.

Also, OSU students Hayden Myers, Kumar Yash, Anuj Pratap Singh, Chhavi Nijhawan and Sushma Reddy Mandhadapu teamed up to place third in the challenge.

“Winning this challenge along with my classmates proves that I’ve imbibed the essential ingredient of this program, which is to nurture your individual competence in data science domain along with imparting traits that make you function and extract the best of you and your team,” said Muppalla.

Phelan says the challenge helped him and his teammates prepare for careers in data analytics.

“During this competition, I learned many technical aspects of data analytics that have helped prepare me for a career,” he said. “However, the most important element I learned throughout this challenge was the ability to collaborate efficiently. Each team member involved was able to balance their full-time work schedule, as well as the work required to complete the deliverables for this competition.

 

“With limited time to work together, we learned to conduct productive meetings, delegate tasks when necessary, and provide support for each other in the needed areas. I am proud to have been a part of a group that has undoubtedly set an example of how to successfully collaborate in a team environment.”

Dr. Venu Lolla, mentor for both OSU teams, was proud of what the teams accomplished.

“The OSU master’s in business analytics and data science program covers a significant breadth and depth of topics related to the data analytics field, covering various core concepts, methodologies, tools and frameworks,” he said. “The program takes the student cohorts through multiple projects, internships and seminars on emerging topics. During this intensive process, our student teams bring their creativity, competitiveness, expertise and grit to competitions such as these.

“This competition, in particular, presents a challenge that requires creative feature engineering and being able to interpret the problem in both technical and business domains. The effort and time the OSU teams put in to understand the business problem, interpret it in the technical domain and then creatively engineer features were well rewarded. We are very proud of what the teams have achieved.”

Visit the website, for more information about the master’s in business analytics program at OSU.