About DataFest

The American Statistical Association’s DataFest, founded at UCLA in 2011, is a 48-hour data analysis competition in which undergraduate students from various majors get to work in teams on large, complex, and real-world data. The data is kept secret until opening of the event on Friday evening and teams present their findings to a panel of judges on Sunday afternoon. Students explore, analyze, and visualize the data to discover insights. No prior knowledge of programming or data visualization is necessary!

Previous years’ data sets have included crime data from the LAPD, dating data from eHarmony, and even data from the Canadian Olympic Women’s rugby team. This year’s data set will be revealed at the opening of the event on Friday evening.

At the conclusion of the competition, each team will have 5 minutes and 2 slides to make a presentation to a panel of judges. Judges will select teams to win prizes for areas such as “Best Insight”, “Best Visualization”, and “Best use of External Data”.

The mission of DataFest is to expose undergraduate students to challenging questions with immediate real-world significance that can be addressed through data analysis. By working in teams, students with varying skill sets will combine their efforts and expand their collective data analysis horizons. Interaction among students, as well as with outside coaches will promote the sense that data analysis is a dynamic, engaging, and vibrant part of our society, as well as a realistic, practical, and fun career path.

Helpful Guides

Updated for 2024.

DataFest in the news:

If you would like to write about or cover DataFest at Chico State in any way, please don’t hesitate to contact us.