We call upon all students and teachers to use computational thinking skills, combined with math, science, geography and climate change knowledge to find solutions for the UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 – “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”
As Canada and the World find its way out of the COVID pandemic and new ways for sustainable development, the need for fair and equitable housing has become increasingly apparent. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. projects the nation will need an additional 5 million housing units by 2030 to accommodate a growing population. Average Canadian house prices soared to $816,720 in March 2022, representing a 20% increase in a single year.
Fair housing is far reaching, covering many subtopics including (but not limited to):
- Determining the role of co-living and co-working arrangements in the future of housing
- Increasing survivability of housing structures in the uptick in natural disasters as a result of climate change;
- Analyzing the future of housing in urban centres, the prairies and the newly-thawed permafrost in the Arctic;
- Determining the role of smart home and metaverse technologies in the modern home;
- Lowering the cost of housing as Canada enters a potential economic recession.
- Improving heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) technologies to prevent the spread of airborne viruses, such as COVID-19 and to ensure high standards of living;
- Ensuring accessibility for individuals with disabilities in new housing developments;
- Creating safe and enjoyable spaces to play, unwind and socialize; and,
- Designing beautiful and appreciable architecture for all, including reflections of Indigenous cultures.
Prizes
The High School Big Data Challenge awards high school students for their achievements in Big Data Inquiry and Computational Thinking. It encourages them to pursue their studies in analytics and computational science. Award recipients are selected based on demonstrated research, computational methods, and science communication. It is our intention to organize in-person finals this year if the public health situation remains favorable for Canada East (Toronto), and Canada West (Calgary). As our awards fund grows, monetary prizes now reach $15,000, as well as open access scholarly publishing awards worth $12,000.
Schedule
Registration Window
September 1, 2022 – October 29, 2022
Students form teams of 2-5 and register them online.
Information Sessions
September 17, 2022 – October 8, 2022
- Please Familiarize yourself with the following presentation attached: What is Data Science?
- Take a look at “Co-occurring Pokemon Types” by Dr. Shahin Rostami
- Use a mouse to point on different categories on the chart https://vizzuhq.com/ (scroll down to the second page to VIZZU Stories and VIZZU Benefits)
- Watch this “Introduction to RAWGraphs” video by RAWGraphs Team.
- Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Accessed: July 07, 2020, from https://rawgraphs.io/learning/introduction-to-rawgraphs/.
- Try RAWGraphs
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- Go to https://rawgraphs.io/
- Click on “Use it now” – https://app.rawgraphs.io/
- Choose “Try our samples”
- Pick different flat databases (spreadsheets) to see the main types of variables: strings (sequences of characters), numbers, dates, times.
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Challenge Period
October 29, 2022 – January 15, 2023
During this time, students will:
Crowdsource resources and investigate analytics tools (SAS, Python, R, etc.), choosing one to learn and leverage. Educational resources and workshops will be provided covering various data science topics to help with this.
Attend mentor sessions and ask questions to learn more about anything within the realm of data science, its applications, topic ideation and academic writing.
Work on a chosen dataset for 3 months. Work together in a team setting, making use of mentors, teachers and the provided resources to analyze a dataset and propose solutions.
Tell the story of the data discovery through a scientific report. Use Overleaf to prepare the project report, and submit it through the Google Classroom submission dropbox.
Literature Review Submission Deadline
November 26, 2022
Students must submit a literature review, as a progress check, before the deadline (11:59 pm PT) for evaluation and feedback.
Abstract Submission Deadline
December 10, 2022
Students must submit an abstract, as a progress check, before the deadline (11:59 pm PT) for evaluation and feedback.
Project Submission Deadline
January 15, 2023
Students submit their project reports developed in Overleaf before the deadline (11:59 pm PT) for evaluation by a team of academics and industry experts.
Finalist Announcement
January 29, 2023
The finalists (top 20 teams) will be announced! Successful student teams will have the opportunity to present at Big Data Day.
High School Big Data Day
February 11, 2023 @ 10:00 AM ET – Toronto – SciNet Space in the MARS Building
February 26, 2023 @ 10:00AM MT – Calgary – University of Calgary
SYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
The following events and workshops will be hosted live throughout the competition period at these updated dates:
Kickoff Event and Theme Information
October 30, 2022 @ 11:00 am – 12:00 pm PT
Workshop 1: Expectations and Submission Perquisites*
November 5, 2022 @ 12:00 – 1:30 pm PT
Workshop 2: Project Management*
November 5, 2022 @ 5:00 – 6:00 pm PT
Workshop 3: Introduction to Statistics
November 12, 2022 @ 12:00 – 1:30 pm PT
Workshop 4: Basics of Data Science in Python
November 13, 2022 @ 11:00 am – 1:00 pm PT
Workshop 5: Ethical AI
Part A: November 19, 2022 @ 4:00-5:00 pm PT
Part B: November 20, 2022 @ 4:00-5:00 pm PT
Workshop 6: Blueprint to a Literature Review*
November 26, 2022 @ 12:00 – 1:30 pm PT
Workshop 7: Reference Management
December 3, 2022 @ 12:00 – 1:30 pm PT
Workshop 8: Starting a Manuscript*
December 3, 2022 @ 4:00 – 5:00 pm PT
Workshop 9: Editing 101*
December 10, 2022 @ 12:00 – 1:00 pm PT
Workshop 10: The Introduction and Conclusion Sections *
December 10, 2022 @ 4:00 – 5:00 pm PT
Workshop 11: The Discussion Section*
December 11, 2022 @ 12:00 – 1:30 pm PT
Attendance is mandatory at Workshop 1. Your team must also attend at least 2 out of 4 of Workshops 8-11. Attending all other workshops is entirely optional.
E-LEARNING MODULES
This year, we are offering many workshops in an online, e-learning format. Our participants are able to access the content at any time, and learn at their own pace, while getting help from experienced mentors. The following e-learning modules will be offered:
- What is Data Science?
- Data Privacy and GDPR
- Setting up the Environment
- Relational Databases in SQL
- Concepts of Dashboarding and Data Visualization
- Clustering
- Classification and Logistic Regression
- Fundamentals of Neural Networks
- Natural Language Processing
- Geospatial Analysis
- Network Science
Our Panelists
Roundtable Discussion Topic:
How do climate change and information technologies alter perception of a home?
In the digital age, how is the perception of home changing and affected by life, work, and health?
In a home that was built with the vision of previous generations, how does youth fit in?
Dr. Joel Martin
Chief Digital Research Officer, National Research Council, Canada
Chantelle Howell
Regional Manager, Mortgage Specialist, RBC
David Lapides
M.A., Vice President, Programs, Let’s Talk Scienc
Judges
Mr. David Carter
National Research Council
Ms. Nicole Gerald
Systems Engineer, Cisco
TORONTO BIG DATA DAY – FEB 11, 2023
Guests of Honor
Her Honour, The Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell
(Lieutenant Governor of Ontario)
Dr. Daniel Gruner
CTO, SciNet, UofT
Finalists’ Manuscripts
Our Panelists
Roundtable Discussion Topic:
How do climate change and information technologies alter perception of a home?
In the digital age, how is the perception of home changing and affected by life, work, and health?
In a home that was built with the vision of previous generations, how does youth fit in?
Dr. Daniel Gruner
CTO, SciNet, UofT
Bill Macgowan
P.Eng., CEM, Director, Smart Connected Real Estate, CISCO
Dr. Bonnie Schmidt
CM, FRSC, Founding President, Let’s Talk Science
Judges
Vivek Saahil
Manager – Strategic Business Analysis, Planning & Support, Pratt & Whitney Canada
Raman Pall
Senior Data Scientist, NRC Digital Technologies Research Center
Lubna Rasheed
B. Eng., Senior Software Engineer, Cisco
