UNIMB & KNIME Launch Gamification Challenges

Milan and Zurich, March 1, 2023 — The University of Milano-Bicocca (Milan, Italy), and KNIME, the open source data science company, today announced the launch of the “Machine Learning Challenge” for students of the academic year 2022/2023 attending the Machine Learning course taught by Prof. Fabio Stella for the Master in Data Science from the Department of Informatics, Systems and Communication.

Gamification of learning has been shown to boost learning outcomes, increasing learners’ long-term information retention, and boost overall performance. In line with this, this collaboration is part of the KNIME Gamification Program, established by the KNIME Educators Alliance, aimed at introducing gamification elements, e.g., competitions, learnathons, and hackathons, within data literacy study curricula. KNIME’s free, open low-code/no-code platform, together with its vibrant data science community, enables both, KNIME experts and academics to bring advanced data science techniques to future business and data professionals.

This student challenge follows previous student challenges held at University LUISS in Rome (with Prof. Francisco Villarroel), and at University of Köln (with Prof. Tobias Schlüter). As with previous challenges, the university, University of Milano-Bicocca, organizes the challenge theme, task, and data, while KNIME provides trainings, professional practical expertise, as well as awards and certificates for the winning teams. The Assessment Committee is composed of members of the University as well as of KNIME, Prof. Gabriella Pasi (Director of the Department of Informatics, Systems and Communication), Prof. Andrea Maurino (Director of the Master in Data Science), Prof. Fabio Stella, Rosaria Silipo (Head of Data Science Evangelism at KNIME), and Roberto Cadili (Data Scientist at KNIME), who will jointly assess the projects based on accuracy, complexity, cleanness, usability, and documentation, and identify the winning teams.

The current competition’s theme is “Diabetes Prediction Using Machine Learning Algorithms”. More than 80 students, forming 23 teams, have submitted their project solutions on February 17. KNIME’s open source data science software, KNIME Analytics Platform, has been selected as the tool of choice for the challenge, thanks to its versatility, coverage, and accessibility.

Awards for the student challenge (among others):

• The top three winning teams will be granted the opportunity to publicly present their projects during the hybrid Data Connect Italia event on April 13, 2023 organized by the Italian KNIME community.

• The members of the top winning team will be granted an internship at one of KNIME offices in Europe within the scope of the Erasmus program.

“At KNIME, we’re very excited about our first collaboration with University of Milano-Bicocca, as it represents a unique opportunity to introduce new elements and tools in the data science curricula and strengthen the relationship between academia and industry”, Rosaria Silipo, Head of Data Science Evangelism, KNIME.

This press release was first published in Italian by the University of Milano-Bicocca.

About the University of Milano-Bicocca: The University of Milano-Bicocca was founded in 1998 and in nearly 25 years has developed an extensive international network in various fields of research, including many world-famous universities, research centers and top corporations. It has a multidisciplinary approach that trains professionals in subjects areas such as economics, law, sciences, technology, medicine, sociology, statistics, psychology and pedagogy. The University of Milano-Bicocca has a unique campus structure and has invested over the years in advanced teaching support services, state-of-the-art laboratories, modern infrastructures.

About KNIME: KNIME software bridges the worlds of dashboards and advanced analytics through an intuitive interface, appropriate for anybody working with data. It empowers more business experts to be self-sufficient and more data experts to push the business to the bleeding edge of modern data science, integrating the latest AI and machine learning techniques. KNIME is distinct in its open approach, which ensures easy adoption and future-proof access to new technologies.