Posted on: Tue Feb 27 2024

(Front row from left) Members of the judging panel:  Dr. Chao HE, Founder and CEO, AIVI Technologies; Mr. Clarence CHEUNG, Global Head of Non-Financial Risk Analytics, Wholesale Bank, HSBC; Ms. Denise CHE, CEO, Wisers Information Limited; Prof. Jean WANG, Associate Professor of Business Education, HKUST; Dr. Michael LEUNG, CEO, BOA International Financial Group; Prof. Kai-Lung HUI, Director, CBSA

The Center for Business and Social Analytics (“CBSA”) at HKUST Business School is proud to announce the winners of the CBSA-Wiser Analytics Challenge @HKUST 2023/24, co-organized and -sponsored by Wisers Information Limited (“Wisers”). Following an intense final round held on February 24 and 25, Team Xinovel, a group of Computer Science and Quantitative Finance students from HKUST and CityU, clinched the top spot, with ScamBusters and Social Pulse claiming second and third prizes, respectively.

This year's Challenge saw the participation of close to 40 teams comprising more than 120 students from across Hong Kong universities. Launched in November 2023, the competition tasked teams with mining a massive dataset consisting of over 1.2 million news articles, social media posts, and comments. Their mission was to frame a problem, develop a data methodology, and craft innovative solutions in the form of predictive models or research projects to drive the development of risk management in Hong Kong. 5 teams eventually made it to the final round.

The judging panel, comprising esteemed industry experts from AIVI, BOA International Financial Group, HSBC, HKUST and Wisers, commended the teams—all undergraduate students from first-year to fourth-year cohorts—for their drive and foresight, noting that some of the concepts, if developed further, could attract attention from industry stakeholders.

“Partnering with HKUST for the Analytics Challenge has been a fantastic initiative, not only in terms of advancing impactful social and business solutions, but also in nurturing and identifying exceptional talent,” said Ms. Denise Che, Chief Executive Officer, Wisers Information Limited. “We have been impressed by the students' analytical skills, enthusiasm, and their ability to work in teams, which are essential qualities for future leaders. The Analytics Challenge provides a platform for young talents in Hong Kong to gain a head start in exploring potentially transformative data-driven tools and services across various domains.”

Dr. Michael Leung, Chief Executive Officer, BOA International Financial Group, said, "By using data analytics and machine learning models, the students have been able to find correlations amongst salient variables, such as social media posts, cybercrime rates and market indices, and predict changes that could be occurring and risks that would be looming.  What matters to me most is the recommendations and solutions they proposed do bear great relevance to problems faced by government, businesses, and industries alike.  I congratulate all the teams for their efforts and achievements, and wish them greater success in their pursuits of data analytics for academic and professional applications going forward."

	First Place: Xinovel        Examining the predictive ability of news sentiment on future stock prices.   Members: Lek Shyuen FOR (CSE, CityU)        Trung Hai LE (CSE, CityU)        Newt NGUYEN (CSE, HKUST)     Adrian Man Chun LEE (QFIN, HKUST)
	Second Place: ScamBusters        Building a scam monitoring system for risk management.   Members: Yu Gok CHOW (ACCT, HKUST)        Tsz Ying CHEUNG (ACCT, HKUST)        Chun Hin SO (SENG, HKUST)     Hon Tsun HUANG (MGMT, HKUST)
	Third Place: Social Pulse        Creating a visual representation of potential political risks.   Members: Ronald Hok To LEUNG (DSCT, HKUST)        Samson Hiu Pang LUI (AE with extended major in AI, HKUST)        Vian Wing Yan CHAN (FINA, HKUST)
	Finalist: Senti-Analyst Synergizing social sentiment analysis and cybercrime data for forecasting financial trends.    Members:        Liuruo HAN (DSCT, HKUST)     Wanping WANG (RMBI, HKUST)     Xinyue ZHANG (SBM, HKUST)     Yuxuan LUO (SBM, HKUST)
	Finalist: The Risk Navigators Exploring the relationship between news sentiments and cybersecurity threats.   Members: Tsz Hei LEUNG (IS, HKUST)     Chun Fung SZETO (CSE, HKUST)

At the close of the challenge, Mr. Clarence Cheung, Global Head of Non-Financial Risk Analytics, Wholesale Bank, HSBC, emphasized the importance of focusing on the end goal. “When building analytical applications, it is important to keep the user journey in mind. While data analytics applications are intricate and complex, the delivered insights should be presented as simply as possible. Similar to a sophisticated weather forecasting system, the prediction leverages sophisticated models but the insights are delivered in a simple manner. Ultimately, insights should lead to timely action, like a reminder to bring an umbrella when the analytics expect it to rain tomorrow. This is an illustration of risk management using analytics with effective intervention.”

In his closing remarks, Prof. Kai-Lung Hui highlighted the immense opportunities presented by big data and CBSA’s commitment to harnessing its potential for the betterment of Hong Kong and beyond.