Citadel and Citadel Securities Announce Winners of Third Annual Data Open Championship

CHICAGO, April 16, 2020 — Citadel and Citadel Securities announced the winners of the third-annual 2020 Data Open Championship, which took place virtually on April 6 in light of COVID-19. A team of contestants from Imperial College London and HEC Paris received a grand prize of $100,000 while teams from MIT and Cornell University received prizes of $20,000 and $10,000 respectively.

This year’s Data Open Championship is the culmination of 11 regional competitions that brought together nearly 1,000 participants during the 2019-2020 academic year. More than 80 undergraduate and graduate students from around the world competed in this year’s championship. The competition challenged participants to analyze how the rise of e-commerce has affected consumer spending habits using a collection of datasets, including daily retail pricing data, transaction-level data from several global markets, and retail reviews.

The 18 participating teams had a week to analyze the datasets and develop a presentation based on their findings, which they presented virtually to a panel of judges from Citadel and Citadel Securities. In light of social distancing guidelines, the teams collaborated on their presentations using a variety of virtual communications tools, including Google Hangouts, Zoom, Slack, and Jupyter Notebook.

“The Data Open series demonstrates our continued commitment to supporting the future of data science by engaging with talented individuals who share our passion for this critical discipline,” said Dr. Navneet Arora, Head of Global Quantitative Strategies of Citadel and one of the 2020 judges. “Being able to offer this event in a virtual format this year allowed us to continue this tradition even under these challenging circumstances, which was incredibly exciting for everyone involved.”

This year’s competition included participants from top universities across the U.S., UK and France, including University of California, Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Columbia, Carnegie Mellon, Imperial College London, Cambridge, HEC Paris, Oxford, Caltech, Stanford, and the University of Southern California.

In addition to competing for a number of cash prizes, participating students also had the opportunity to interview for careers at Citadel and Citadel Securities, including for quantitative research, data science, software engineering, trading, and investment roles.

Citadel and Citadel Securities launched the Data Open series in 2017, in partnership with Correlation One, a leading talent solutions technology company. Citadel and Citadel Securities are also lead sponsors of Correlation One’s “Data Science For All (DS4A): Women’s Summit” initiative, which provides mentorship opportunities to women who are interested in STEM and data science careers.

About Citadel

Citadel is one of the world’s leading alternative investment managers. Citadel manages the capital of prominent investors from around the world including retirement programs, endowments and foundations, and sovereign wealth funds. For more information, visit www.Citadel.com.

About Citadel Securities

Citadel Securities is a leading global market maker, delivering a broad array of fixed income and equity products to banks, broker-dealers, government agencies, corporations, insurers, and sovereign wealth funds. For more information, visit www.CitadelSecurities.com.

Source: Citadel