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Students winners of the hackathon United Nations refugees

NEWS RELEASE NO. 26 OF 22 FEBRUARY 2021

The student team from the University of Salento won the international hackathon for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations International Computing Center "Data for Good: UNICC global hackathon": Chiara Rucco and Enrico Coluccia of the "Computer engineering" degree course, Giulia Caso and Gianmarco Girardo of the "Management engineering" course and Riccardo Caro of the "Digital management" course, together with Francesco Russo (University of Rome "La Sapienza") and Marco Greco (Turin Polytechnic) added as "external" students, under the guidance of UniSalento professors Antonella Longo and Gianluca Elia, created a predictive model on refugee movements that impressed the jury.

"The competition, which started last February 16, included the analysis of data from one of the three proposed challenges: "Covid-19 open challenge", a predictive model for the displacement of refugees and data visualization for the 75th anniversary of the United Nations," explains Professor Antonella Longo, "with a deliverable to be produced in 24 hours. Fifty-four universities from all over the world took part in the hackathon; on behalf of Italy, our University, the Polytechnic of Milan and the Polytechnic of Bari applied. Our team has chosen as its name "Heel of The Boot" and has competed for the refugees theme, producing a paper that is visible on YouTube. After passing a first selection together with teams from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and Columbia University, our students presented their work and defended it with great determination and competence, to the point of convincing a jury composed of representatives of the High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Criminal Court and experts from the International Computing Center. The students were awarded for their ability to explore the open data provided and for the predictive analysis conducted with machine learning techniques. All of this was presented in an extremely effective way thanks to the acquired data storytelling skills."

The selected model has predicted, by the year 2024, the home nations of migrants who may be granted refugee status, asylum seekers, and those who may need to relocate within a nation. The prediction results are in line with the current global geopolitical situation, but the model also predicted a potential flow of refugees from Sweden. This result was appreciated by the jury, as the model developed highlighted an aspect not directly reportable from the current scenario.

The winning students will participate in the 50th anniversary events of the founding of the United Nations International Computing Center.

 

Video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/K4ji6vOEqwk

Project webpage: http://heeloftheboot.webflow.io/