The supply chain challenges posed by global climate change threaten the security of supply of the entire chemical industry. Meanwhile, the industry is also faced with the question of how to achieve greater resource efficiency in order to achieve more sustainable production. To address these two important issues, Covestro, supported by KEX AG, hosted an international Data Science Hackathon at Tongji University (Shanghai, China), RWTH Aachen University (Aachen, Germany) and Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, USA) from November 8-11. The venue in Germany is the INC Invention Center on the RWTH Campus Aachen.
This is Covestro's first real-time hackathon on three continents, researching the best approaches and applications for data analysis to meet the urgent needs of the chemical industry while advancing the application of data science in the chemical industry.
The competition attracted more than 90 students from three universities around the world. In the four-day competition, students participated in three real-life supply chains and production cases in the chemical industry and demonstrated an interdisciplinary form of teamwork. The projects were evaluated on an hourly basis, reflecting a real scenario in which business partners provide regular and limited feedback so that teams can draw conclusions. Across all use cases, solutions were evaluated by presentation, content, technical solution and business case.
The winning teams from the three regions will compete for the global title at the Chemalytix conference on 12 December, where they will also learn about the use of artificial intelligence in industry and meet with representatives of several organisations. Open collaboration with academies is the backbone of Covestro's innovation strategy. Tongji University, RWTH Aachen University and Carnegie Mellon University have all established long-term partnerships with Covestro.
The KEX Knowledge Exchange AG and the INC Invention Center congratulate the winners and wish all participants good luck for the upcoming final!
In recruiting participants at RWTH, the Aachen team relied on close collaboration with the Collective Incubator, a student initiative that enables student teams to drive innovation and transform it into startups.
