IIT-M to hold Cricket Hackathon for data science enthusiasts

IIT-M will organise the ‘Cricket Hackathon 2021’, where students, professionals, and data science enthusiasts could participate. The academic competition has been designed for beginners to learn and compete, as well as for professionals to showcase their abilities. 

Participants need to submit a code that predicts the score at the end of the sixth over for each innings of the upcoming T20 matches. 

Prathap Haridoss, professor-in-charge, said individuals or a team with a maximum of four members could participate and there is no registration fee to enter the contest. Registrations for the competition will begin on April 13 2021 on https://onlinedegree.iitm.ac.in/contest. 

According to him, as part of this competition, all participants will be provided with data from past T20 matches. The competition is structured as an academic activity where participants will try to predict the score at the end of six overs in every innings for a set of matches. The contest is expected to run for about 50 innings of the T20 matches. 

The results of the score predicted versus the actual score will be released the day after the match. There will be two leader boards — the leaderboard of the day showcasing predictions closest to the actual score on that day and the leader board for the contest based on cumulative scores. 

The individual or the team with the lowest error in their prediction over the 50 innings will be declared the winner. Cash prizes and certificates await the top 50 winners of the overall contest and there will be T-shirts for daily winners. 

Claiming that the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, data science is one of the fastest-growing sectors, predicted to create 11.5 million jobs by 2026, Pratham said the IIT Madras BSc programme aims to spread more awareness about data science as a field of study through this event.