PODCAST / EPISODE 60

The Next Opportunity in The Next Generation: Data Insights

With Deb Eskra (Oracle), Neal Heffernan (GfK) & An Tran (NJIT)

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The 2022 GfK NextGen Hackathon Competition brought together undergraduate teams from different universities to compete against one another in a data analytics showdown. Teams were tasked with developing strategic recommendations for new products or services in the shopper insights space; this year’s winner hailed from NJIT — iRecommend, a service that relies on predictive analytics to suggest products to ecommerce shoppers, based on their purchase histories and personal characteristics.

Now in its 11th year, the NextGen Competition gives undergraduates firsthand exposure to solving real-life business problems with consumer insights and data.

Tune into this episode as we go behind the scenes to get insights and perspectives from one of our judges Deb, our GfK expert, Neal and team captain of our winning team, An. They talk about their experiences with the hackathon, and more importantly, how marketers, organizations and other students can benefit from taking part in a data competition.

Thinking Ahead

This is a podcast about research, innovation, and discovery. Each episode will give you new insights into today’s consumer, and prepare you for tomorrow’s marketplace.

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BLOG: System to predict needs of ecommerce shoppers wins GfK’s NextGen Data Science Hackathon

A team of four Computer Science majors from New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has won GfK’s annual NextGen Data Science Hackathon Competition, capturing a $5,000 grand prize. The NJIT group proposed data-driven systems for making FMCG ecommerce experiences more personalized.

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