The Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) is pleased to announce the release of The IBIT Report – Show Me The Way To Go Home by Brad N. Greenwood and Sunil Wattal, Temple University.
IBIT News
Third annual Analytics Challenge triples in size with 719 students participating
For Cassandra Reffner, winning the Temple Analytics Challenge for a second straight year was about honing her visual storytelling skills one data set at a time. A senior graphic design student from the Tyler School of Art, Reffner took home the $2,500 grand prize at the third annual Temple Analytics Challenge, held Nov. 16 at the Fox School of Business.
Organized by the Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT), the competition awards prizes totaling $10,000, from corporate members of IBIT and the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies at Temple University. The Temple Analytics Challenge focuses on making sense of big data through visualization — a key component of data analytics cited by experts as a promising path to job opportunities.
Participation increased by 300 percent over the previous year, with 395 entries. Participating teams included 719 students from eight of Temple’s 17 schools and colleges, as well as students from the State University of New York and Cornell University. The finalists came from programs in the Tyler School of Art, the College of Liberal Arts, the College of Engineering, the School of Media and Communications, the College of Public Health, and the Fox School of Business.
“The Temple Analytics Challenge emphasizes the Fox School’s commitment to teaching and research in the various fields connected to big data,” said Dr. M. Moshe Porat, Dean of the Fox School of Business and the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management. “But big data and data visualization are academic components in which students across Temple University regularly engage. This truly was a university-wide competition.”
Corporate partners provided competitors with large sets of data that they must analyze and visualize in a way that is both innovative and accessible. This year’s partners included Merck Pharmaceuticals, QVC, and The Pennsylvania Ballet.
Reffner, who won the Temple Analytics Challenge in 2014, chose to work with the data from The Pennsylvania Ballet, saying she could see the visuals presented within the data set. In the Pennsylvania Ballet challenge, students had to conceptualize the best way for the company to attract new audience members.
“With our limited resources, we just don’t have the time or the staff to do this kind of imagining,” said David Gray, executive director of The Pennsylvania Ballet. “Having so many smart and creative people trying to help us address challenges is a godsend.”
To expand on the project’s proposal, Reffner scrolled through various mentions the company received on social media — from Tweets and hashtags to status updates — to see what about the company got people talking. She said was intrigued by the company’s position as a “19th-century product for a 21st-century audience,” and drafted a plan that took this value and social media’s talk-back feature to improve customer interaction. She suggested a redesign of The Pennsylvania Ballet’s website to respond on all devices, including desktops, smartphones, and tablets, so customers could interact with the ballet by any means necessary.
Reffner and 19 other finalists went before a panel of judges comprised of industry leaders, including representatives from Lockheed Martin, Campbell’s Soup Company, Deloitte Consulting and AmerisourceBergen. The judges were impressed with the overall dedication the students brought to the challenge.
“This competition is not focused toward any specific major,” Reffner said. “It’s people from all over the place that entered the competition. That’s why I love the Temple Analytics Challenge.”
Beyond The Pennsylvania Ballet challenge, student participants had the choice of two others. The Merck challenge tasked students with synthesizing data to show how a vaccine will best benefit world health. QVC provided data relating to product placement in various markets and asked students to show how this data could predict where it should next focus its attention.
“Data alone is just information. It’s usage to inspire change or action and turning it into competitive intelligence is where the value lies, and the Temple Analytics Challenge did just that,” said Maurice Whetstone, QVC’s Director of Enterprise Data Management.
Jordan Bonner, Actuarial Science student at the Fox School of Business won second place along with Samantha Rogers, Psychology student in the College of Liberal Arts. The winners are featured in the 2015 Temple Analytics Challenge Gallery.
“Analytics in business, and especially in healthcare, is an amazing lever toward gaining unique insight to improve business performance,” said Bill Stolte, the Executive Director of Merck’s IT Business Performance Analytics. “It is an honor to be actively engaged in the Temple Analytics Challenge, and it is remarkable to watch Temple University students rapidly self-organize and use data and visualizations in innovative ways to solve complex problems.”
Professors James Moustafellos, David Schuff, and Laurel Miller in the Management Information Systems department of the Fox School of Business organized the Challenge for IBIT.
Emtec CEO and Chairman Dinesh Desai joins Fox IT Advisory Board
Information technology executive Dinesh Desai has joined the Fox IT Advisory Board. Desai serves as the Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Emtec, a provider of tech-based business solutions.
Additionally, Emtec has become a member of the Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) at Temple University’s Fox School of Business.
It is a privilege to welcome Dinesh to the Board,” said Dr. Munir Mandviwalla, Executive Director of IBIT and Chair of Fox School’s Management Information Systems (MIS) department. “His entrepreneurial instincts and accomplishments will serve the digital innovation agenda and the associated MIS department.
Managed by IBIT, the Fox IT Advisory Board advises the Fox School, its MIS department, and IBIT.
Desai joins the 13-member Fox IT Advisory Board that features professionals and executives in the technology, finance, entertainment, healthcare, retail commerce industries, and more.
Emtec is proud to support Temple University, the Fox School of Business, and IBIT by becoming an active participant in joint research and thought-leadership activities,” Desai said. “We firmly believe that industry and academic collaboration is the best method to prepare the next generation of business leaders.
Desai added: Being an alumnus of Temple’s Fox School of Business, I am personally honored to be invited to join the Advisory Board. I look forward to working with the other members of the board to contribute in a meaningful way toward the strategy and future direction of the institute.
Desai has served as Emtec’s Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer since 2005. Before that, he was Chairman and CEO of management consulting firm DARR Global Holdings, Inc. Previously, Desai was President, CEO, and Co-Chairman and an owner of Western Sky Industries, a privately held manufacturer of proprietary component parts used primarily in aerospace applications. He also held various management positions for 12 years with American Can and Arco Chemical.
Desai received his Master of Business Administration in Business Administration and Management from Temple’s Fox School of Business. He also holds a Master of Chemical Engineering degree from Montana State University-Bozeman, and earned his Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, in Bombay.
Lockheed Martin, IBIT partner for successful National Cyber Analyst Challenge
Lockheed Martin and Temple University’s Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) joined forces Nov. 5-6 in Washington D.C. to host the first annual National Cyber Analyst Challenge. The competition, which welcomed students from nine universities, including a team from the Fox School of Business, was designed to enhance students’ skills in combatting cyber-attacks.
“Cyber security analysts represent a critical skill need for most organizations,” said Chris Kearns, Lockheed Martin’s Vice President of Enterprise IT Solutions. “These students showed great promise through their hands-on teamwork to solve real world challenges and progress through the competition.”
The challenge, which aims to inspire today’s technologically literate students to pursue careers in cyber security, was a three-month, multi-phase competition that presented each team with a cyber-security case to analyze. Temple’s team included five students from the Fox School’s Master of Science in IT Auditing and Cyber Security (ITACS) program: Jeta Gjana, Jose Gomez, Kerwing Hy, and Nick Nguyen, from ITACS’ security track; and Ibtissam Bazzine, of ITACS’ auditing track. The students received coaching from ITACS professors Ed Ferrara and Wade Mackey.
In the first phase of the competition, the students pored over 75 gigabytes of data to find the cause of the simulated hack. Then the teams submitted 10-slide summary reports to explain their respective solutions for preventing future cyber-attacks. In the second phase, in which only nine teams competed, the students received training from industry experts. The competition culminated in a real-time practical challenge held at Lockheed Martin’s Global Vision Center in Crystal City, Va.
The winning team, from Iowa State University, was selected by a panel of industry experts and scored on technical proficiency, judgment, and communication. Iowa State’s students received $25,000 in prize money. The runners-up, including Fox’s team, received awards of $7,500-$15,000 to support student, faculty, and curriculum development.
“It was gratifying to work with Lockheed Martin to create such a student- and faculty-centric opportunity,” said Dr. Munir Mandviwalla, IBIT’s Executive Director and the Chair of Management Information Systems at the Fox School. “We hope to increase the national cyber talent pool across the nation’s top programs in Management Information Systems, Computer Science, and Engineering.”
Is Government IT Spending Worth It?
The Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) is pleased to announce the release of The IBIT Report – Is Government IT Spending Worth It? by Min-Seok Pang, Temple University.
