Data Analytics Competition

2021 Conference
Join us April. 23-24, 2021, for the Upstat Annual Conference.

Data Analytics Competition

Dates to Remember

  1. Registration Deadline: April 9, 2021
  2. Web access opens to download data: March 22, 2021
  3. Deadline to receive analysis and report: April 18, 2021 Submission Form

Register Your Team - Report Submission Form

The UPSTAT 2021 conference features its signature data analytics competition aimed at further encouraging a more active participation from students at all levels, from the high school level all the way to the doctoral level. A team of at least one student and no more than 5 students may enter the competition by submitting their entry information which includes team name, school, and the names and e-mail addresses of the team members. All team members MUST be a matriculated student at a recognized school. People with a PhD and/or people out of school are NOT allowed to be team members. You may use mentors in the form of your teachers and professors, but the work must be yours.  The data set will be accessible from the conference website on around March 22, 2021 to teams that have entered the competition. Teams will be required to submit a report (maximum of 10 pages) on their results by April 18, 2021.  Prizes will be awarded to the top 3 teams, all of whom will be asked to present their results at the conference.  

Prizes
  • Gold: Could be up to $300 for the team + Certificates
  • Silver: Could be up to 200 for the team + Certificates
  • Bronze: Could be up to d150 for the team + Certificates
  • Honorable mention: Could be up to $100 for the team + Certificate

Important Links

Register Your Team
Report Submission Form

Data Analytics Competition Committee

 

Problem Statement

Starting in the 2010’s, several resources began naming Austin, Texas among the best cities to live and to raise a family in. Several reasons supported this contention including the expanding economy, quality of education, access to outdoor activities and mild weather. By 2016, Austin reached number one on some of these lists. At roughly the same time, Austin was ranked highly on another far less desirable list. In 2015, Austin was ranked as the country’s most economically segregated metro area.

Beyond economic segregation, minority residents in the city voiced concerns about disparity in city services provided by multiple city departments including the police department. To address issues of disparity, Austin City Council adopted Strategic Direction 2023 (SD23) which established equity as one of the city’s guiding values.

Read more about SD23 here:

Austin-Strategic-Direction_2023.pdf (austintexas.gov)

Category D of SD23 relates to Fair Administration of Justice. While there are several areas where administration of justice can be evaluated for fairness, fairness in traffic stops and outcomes resulting from traffic stops has been a key consideration. The issue of fairness in traffic stops has likewise been studied by the city’s Office of Police Oversight (OPO).

See OPO’s reporting about traffic stops here:

2019 Joint Report: Analysis of APD Racial Profiling Data (austin.gov)

Joint Report: Analysis of Racial Profiling Data, 2015-2018 (austin.gov)

Regarding SD23, the City of Austin publishes various metrics related to SD23 targets on the city website for public review. The public safety dashboard is located at:

Safety Dashboard | Open Data | City of Austin Texas

The data utilized for the OPO reports and the SD23 dashboards are available on the city’s open data portal:

Open Data | City of Austin Texas | Open Data | City of Austin Texas

The racial profiling datasets form the core data for analysis of traffic stops. Arrests datasets provide the traffic stops which resulted in an arrest, citations datasets provide the traffic stops which resulted in a citation, and the warnings and field observations data sets provide the traffic stops that did not result in either a citation or an arrest.

See the racial profiling datasets here:

Results for "RP" | Page 1 of 2 | Open Data | City of Austin Texas

Together, these provide the context for this year’s UPSTAT challenge. At the core of this issue are questions like, “what is fairness” and “how should it be measured?” The ideal solution will integrate a substantial consideration of the social discussion about fairness in policing, address limitations of available data, and convey the information to the public in an interpretable unbiased way.

Participants are encouraged to use any data available on the open data portal alongside any other publicly-available data to:

  • Generate a measure or series of measurements that operationalize fairness in traffic enforcement.
  • Develop a visualization or series of visualizations that accurately portray the level of fairness according to the available data.

Rules of the competition


  • A team must be comprised of at least 3 members and at most 5 members. Due to all the challenges brought about by the pandemic, we will make an exception this year and allow lone rangers (teams of only one person).
  • All team members must be graduate or undergraduate students with proof of matriculation and/or affiliation [Active university email address and/or letter from academic advisor]
  • All team members must be registered to the UPSTAT 2021 conference
  • Each team must enter the competition via enrollment by the team captain. The team captain must send the registration as a single file containing all the team members proof of UPSTAT 2021 registrations, team members email addresses and the team name.
  • Additional rules are found on the conference website. Please be sure to double check that your whole team comply with the rules, prior to entering the competition.
  • At any point of the competition, the captain of the team is allowed to contact the data analytics competition committee of UPSTAT 2021 with questions aimed at helping clarify aspects of the data and/or the competition.