Students Turned Data Scientists for a Competition

The data was the real thing, the variables almost infinite. With no protected classroom context, the situation was as realistic as possible, as confirmed by the almost unlimited access to the Amplifon data platform (Dataiku). The competition's protagonists were the approximately 60 students of the course in Innovation and marketing analytics, a compulsory subject of the MSc program in Data Science and Business Analytics. Divided into groups, the students were asked to measure how Amplifon's marketing activities impacted on the purchasing possibilities of potential customers. "In practice, students had to build a predictive model to correlate marketing and purchasing activities, "explains Gaia Rubera, holder of the Amplifon Chair in Customer Science, under whose auspices the competition took place.

It was like being true data scientists because the competition replicated the exact situation of a new employee confronted with an enormous amount of data on their first day of work. "Usually in these situations, a limited number of data and variables are provided, but this time that was not the case," continues Rubera. "The data were complete, as were the variables. A situation that perhaps created some difficulties at the beginning, but then the enthusiasm of being able to work in a real situation, absolutely unprotected, prevailed." At the end of the course, which lasted about two months, the 12 groups presented their work to a jury of Amplifon managers who selected the best three, without further distinction in the ranking.

"We chose to expose the students to real data that covered a large space of both temporal and geographical analysis and they interpreted the challenge in the best possible way", comments Cristiano Grassini, Amplifon Global Digital Senior Director. "It was difficult for us to choose a winner because all the teams demonstrated not only strong analytical skills but also an innate business acumen and a strong interest in deepening the dynamics of a complex sector like hearing care."

In addition to the satisfaction that a victory in any competition brings, experiences like this leave a deep mark on the students. "One of the most educational aspects", says Rebecca Solcia, one of the winning students, "was the continuous interaction with Amplifon's data science team, who showed us all the internal procedure - even the most sophisticated ones - allowing us to be part of the process at 360 °. We were real data scientists dealing with a real situation. Competitions like these, which allow us to immerse ourselves in the context of a real company, are also useful for helping us better understand what our inclinations are."