On November 21, the "HSBC Cup" 2016 China University SAS Data Analysis Competition concluded at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. Three teams from our School of Statistics and Management successfully advanced through the competition, all making it into the national top twenty. Among them, the team composed of Wang Yumeng, Chen Shu, and Liang Siyun won the national third place in this competition. Our faculty member, Teacher Wu Chunjie, received the Excellent Organization Award for this competition.
At the beginning of the year, Wu Chunjie, the Vice Dean of the School of Statistics and Management, took the lead in establishing a preparatory team for the SAS Data Analysis Competition and invited Associate Professor Luo Sirong to provide guidance throughout the process. The school offered a large amount of professional materials to the participating students free of charge and assigned professional teachers to provide regular guidance and occasional Q&A support, giving students maximum assistance. The preliminary round of the competition was held on October 23 in eighteen cities nationwide, attracting nearly 700 teams from 16 competition regions, with the school hosting the preliminary round in the Shanghai region. The three teams sent by the School of Statistics and Management, relying on their solid foundation in SAS software and practical skills, successfully advanced to the Beijing finals alongside 130 other teams.
Figure 1 2016 SAS Data Analysis Competition Preliminary Round (Shanghai)
After two days of data processing, modeling analysis, and paper writing, the representative team of Wang Yumeng, Chen Shu, and Liang Siyun stood on the award stage at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in the finals, winning the national third place. This year's competition scale is three times that of last year. Amidst intense competition and rivalry, all three teams from our college made it to the top twenty, with two teams from the School of Finance and the School of Mathematics entering the national top fifty.
Figure 2: Award presentation scene for the third-place team led by Wang Yumeng
Figure 3: Group photo of contestants and teachers
The SAS Data Analysis Competition for Chinese Universities is a non-profit public competition initiated by SAS China, specifically targeting data analysis-related majors in Chinese universities. Hosted by SAS Software (Beijing) Co., Ltd., it is open to universities across the country, aiming to enhance students' proficiency in SAS software, increase the impact of SAS software in Chinese universities, and align Chinese universities with international standards in the field of data modeling.
In October 2015, led by the School of Statistics and Management, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics officially signed a strategic cooperation agreement with SAS China. The two parties carried out comprehensive and multi-faceted strategic cooperation, including establishing a practical base for college students, founding the “Shanghai University of Finance and Economics-SAS Training and Development Center,” organizing the “SAS Data Analysis Competition,” research collaboration, and talent cultivation. Over the four editions of the competition, our School of Statistics and Management has successively achieved two championships and one third place as remarkable results. This SAS competition received great attention and close monitoring from the school's managing departments and the leadership of the School of Statistics and Management, and was strongly supported by the school's professional education and teaching reform project “Comprehensive Reform Pilot Project for Statistics Major - Bingwen Plan.” In recent years, the school has strengthened cooperation with several well-known enterprises such as HSBC, Nielsen, and Tongdun Technology in various forms of talent cultivation, including competitions, statistical modeling competitions, the construction of internship practice bases, and practical case course development. This is a prominent example of the school's reform of the statistical talent training model and comprehensive reform of the statistics major, as well as a strong exploration to enhance school-enterprise cooperation and expand the talent cultivation construction platform.
