Analytics for Society Award

The Business School’s Department of Analytics, Marketing & Operations and Gandhi Centre for Inclusive Innovation are thrilled to announce the Analytics for Society Awards 2024 edition. This is a student-led competition to promote the use of analytics, optimization, and visualization tools to explore and tackle problems for the good of our society, specifically addressing one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The awards were presented during the final stage of the event at the LGS Lecture Theatre, Imperial College Business School, South Kensington campus at 6:00 PM on 5th March 2024. 

Our amazing lineup of keynote speakers were excited to share their insights on analytics and sustainability:

• Ms. Natalie Pullin - Head of Sustainability, Group Technology at HSBC
• Ms. Julia Westland - Tech, Data, Analytics & AI Career Coach, ex-BCGX and Accenture
• Ms. Kimberley Abbott - Founder & CEO at Vested Impact, United Nations Independent Consultant

How to enter

Stage 1: Video & summary submission

Teams will prepare a five-minute video and a brief summary document that demonstrates how data visualization tools and/or state-of-the art analytical techniques can be used to:  

• Explore issues threatening, and opportunities contributing to, one or a combination of the United Nations Sustainable Development goals (SDGs);  

• Address these issues and/or explain the impact of these opportunities using data analytics; 

• Communicate the findings to a wider audience effectively and creatively.  

Sample projects that teams have formulated in the past include: 

• An innovative solution to monitor microplastic contamination in our water bodies. You can refer to the previous year’s winning team project here. (Team members: Nirmal Thomas, Irene Jia, Grace Duan and Linxi Cao) (SDG #6).

• A formulation of an optimisation problem that ensures the optimal allocation of students to a scholarship program based on their merit and financial background to reduce inequalities (SDG #10). 

• An application of time series forecasting to estimate when energy demand will be too high to meet supply in rural areas to enable access to affordable energy (SDG #7). 

• A mock-up for an analytical dashboard that examines the sources of drinking water and their primary usage per province in a country with poor access to clean drinking water (SDG #6). 

Note: Teams are encouraged to present ideas and their quantifiable impact without necessarily producing a prototype or performing any data analysis.  

Submissions are now closed. Please check back later for announcements for Analytics for Society Award 2025!

Stage 2: Screening stage

To ensure that your team has the best chance of being selected for the final round, share your precious work with your friends/colleagues and ask for their support! The selection will be determined by public voting and an internal review to ensure all guidelines and criteria are met. 

The voting platform is now closed.

Stage 3: Awards night

If your team is selected as a finalist, you will present your project to a panel of judges on the awards night and stand to win from a cash prize pool of £900. Please note the decisions will be made by the judging panel on site and no voting will occur at this stage.  

Judging criteria 

The judging panel will assess submissions based on the following criteria ensuring a comprehensive and fair evaluation of each entry: 

Content (60%)   

• Problem: Identifies the most pressing issues relating to any specific SDG categories. (30%)   

• Solution: Arrives at a creative solution to address these issues, or explain the impact of these opportunities, in an innovative way using  data analytics (30%)   

Delivery (40%)   

• Communicates the findings to a wider audience effectively and creatively. (20%) 

• Leverages data visualization tools and state-of-the art communication/presentations techniques. (20%)   

Participation Criteria: 

• The presentation video is recommended to be under 5 minutes. 

• The summary should be either in word or pdf format, with a cap of 400 words. 

• Video entries must be hosted on YouTube or Vimeo before submission to the platform 

• You can participate alone or in a team of up to four.  

• Cross-university teams are allowed.  

• Staff from Imperial College London and Imperial College Business School are not allowed to participate.  

If you have any questions regarding the award, forming groups, or submission details please e-mail us. 

This event is brought to you by...

A group of students from the MSc Business Analytics 2024 cohort passionate about data analytics and sustainability: 

• Sanyam Jain (President)
• Luigi Guan (Head of Marketing)
• Chelsea Liu (Head of Events)
• Ka-Chun Liu (Treasurer)

Support was provided by: 

• Professor Sankalp Chaturvedi and Hannah Heritage at the Gandhi Centre for Inclusive Innovation,   
• Professor Wolfram Wiesemann and Dr Esma Koca in the Department of Analytics, Marketing & Operations

Judging panel:

• Mr. James Eteen - Academic Director for the MSc Management and MSc International Management programmes
• Prof. Wolfram Wiesemann - Head of Department of Analytics, Marketing and Operations
• Prof. Cloda Jenkins - Associate Dean of Education Quality at the Business School
• Dr. Mario Martínez-Jiménez - Research Associate in Economics at the Business School
• Ms. Cristina Vera - Global Supply Chain Carbon and Circularity Manager at Hitachi Energy
   

Supported by the Postgraduate Community Fund