The ASA DataFestTM began at UCLA in 2011 when 30 students gathered for 48 intense hours to help fight crime through an analysis of every arrest record of the last five years as provided by Lt. Thomas Zak of the Los Angeles Police Department. DataFest is now sponsored by the American Statistical Association and is hosted by several of the most prestigious colleges and universities around the country and involves over 500 students. In years, teams came from UCLA, Pomona College, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, UC Riverside, University of Southern California, and Cal State Long Beach.
ASA DataFestTM is supported by the American Statistical Association and has been held at several sites throughout the U.S. and Canada and Germany. To learn more, including how your school can participate, visit amstat.org/education/datafest. Participating schools have included Duke University, the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State, Emory, Princeton, Dartmouth, Smith, Hampshire, Amherst, Mt. Holyoke and the University of Massachusetts.
A key feature of DataFestTM is that it gathers together the data science community. Undergraduate students do the work, but they are assisted by roving consultants who are graduate students, faculty, and industry professionals. Many professionals find DataFest to be a great recruiting opportunity; they get to watch talented undergraduate students work under pressure in a team and examine their thinking process.