Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) candidates Xhoni Shollaj, Yan Ran and Yu Zhen, and Business Analytics Centre (BAC) research assistant Xu Junhui netted a cash prize of US$5000 for clinching second place at the Huawei Developer Competition 2022. The quartet competed against some 130 tertiary teams across the region over three months, starting in July and culminating at a final event in late September in Bangkok.
The Competition invited students to develop software projects using the Huawei Cloud platform in categories including finance, healthcare and e-commerce.
The quartet wowed the judges with their idea of a platform that uses the power of machine learning and advanced analytics to provide proper evaluation and predictive modelling for digital arts stored in the blockchain. As a result, investors and creators could obtain informed, data-driven insights on collections from different marketplaces.
From left: Junhui, Xoni, Yan Ran and Yu Zhen
“We use the power of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to derive models built from different features, such as social media data, price information and feature breakdown from the collections,” said the team. The team also added the inspiration for the idea came from the surge in the popularity of NFTs, and they saw a lack of a comprehensive solution that provides insights into marketplaces.
“Investors could benefit by using our platform as a starting point for investing in digital art and making more educated decisions moving forward in the field,” said the team. They added that they were able to employ skills from MSBA modules, such as Feature Engineering for Machine Learning for their project.
While the judges found the four’s project exciting and unique, the team faced a big challenge at the final stage in Bangkok — all except for Yu Zhen could not travel to the Thai capital city due to visa and pandemic restrictions.
The four pressed on, with Yu Zhen doing extensive preparation, such as rehearsing the script, walking through the slides, and continuously getting feedback from the team. During the final day, Yu Zhen had to adapt and handle the Q&A himself when the other teammates could not participate virtually due to connectivity issues.
Associate Professor James Pang, Co-Director, MSBA and NUS Business Analytics Centre, also helped advise the team, guiding the four with insights to present technical information in a more structured and easy-to-understand format.
Overall, the team said participating in a competition was a memorable experience as they came up with a solution with real-life applications. It was also a test of their resilience. “Our team persevered through the difficulties, and we are proud of it,” said the four.
