2 Ecija students win Asean data analytics competition

Students Jade Hizon and John Rusty Pereña from Nueva Ecija University Science and Technology emerged victorious in ASEAN Data Science Explorers national finals competition in Mapua University, Makati City. INQUIRER.net / DAPHNE GALVEZ

Two students from Nueva Ecija emerged victorious in a data analytics competition held by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Foundation and multinational software company SAP on Wednesday.

Jade Hizon and John Rusty Pereña from Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology bested 18 students from various colleges and universities across the country in the Asean Data Science Explorers (DSE) national finals competition held at Mapua University in Makati.

Hizon and Pereña tackled the problem of unemployment across Asean member countries that relies on how the educational system works. The fourth year students believe that entrepreneurship education can help students turn their ideas into actions.

“Since we are future educators, we tackled the educational system here in the Philippines and across the Asean countries and iyon ‘yung nakita naming problema na yung educational system natin tine-train lang tayo sa employment pero yung sa skills kulang tayo (That is the problem we see in our educational system. We are trained to find employment but we lack skills),” Hizon told INQUIRER.net on Wednesday.

Hizon and Pereña will represent the Philippines in the DSE regional finals in Singapore where they will compete with other national winners from all 10 Asean member countries.

“Gusto lang namin is ma-ishare ‘yong natutunan namin based from the data that we gathered during our research pero ngayon we will try our best. Kung nakagawa kami dati ng presentation within four months, so ito na magrerepresent kami ngayon ng country natin,” Pereña said.

(We want to share what we learned from the data we gathered from our research, but we will try our best. If we were able to do a presentation within four months, we will do even better now that we are representing our country.)

De La Salle University students Meygen Cruz and Patrick Matthew Chan landed the second spot in the competition with a project that seek to find ways to supplement the small education budget and increase the number of graduates through the joint effort of Asean member states.

Students Rhianna Rain and Sueanne Marie Billones came in third with their project “Bunga,” which delved into the increasing unemployment rate in the Asean region.

Twenty students, representing 10 teams which has two members each, presented their data-driven insights on selected social and economic issues in the Asean to the panel of judges from Asean, SAP, and the Ayala Foundation.

“The organizing company had a really hard time picking which [groups] should be [on] the top 10 because not only did we get more submissions, we also got better submissions,” Asean representative Amy Darajati Utomo said.

SAP Philippines Managing Director Edler Panlilio, who is one of the judges in the competition, said there were great and inspiring ideas from the contestants that have the potential to improve Asean society.

“We’ve seen the improvement of the applicability of theories into actual play. It’s not really about them doing a really good presentation, it’s about them imbibing how they can use technology to use to move societies, to move organizations,” Panlilio said.

“The main improvement is really more on how they are now tying the technology with their respective business cases or their propositions. I think the full potential of the technology is still there,” he added.

Social and economic issues highlighted in the competition included good health and well-being; quality education; gender equality; decent work and economic growth; industry, innovation and infrastructure; and sustainable cities and communities. /ee