An AI-powered loan forecasting solution developed by Ryan Chen, Yunpeng Zhang, and Ziming Zheng (Team Boston Power) topped the field at this year’s JDD (JD.com Discovery) 2017 Global Data Challenge, winning the first prize of US$45,000. The project — based on JD Finance’s credit loan system Jingdong Gold Bullion — notified consumers eligible for online loans who were interested in but could not afford a particular product.
Held December 21 in Santa Clara, California, the JDD Challenge invited top university students, experienced developers, startup founders, serial Hackathon winners and other assorted hopefuls to develop appropriate business solutions for four challenges: Risk Detection with Login Behaviors, Loan Forecasting, Store Sales Forecasting, and Pig Identification.
Said Zhang: “The JDD Global Data Challenge provides a large amount of data. This is a great experience for people who study machine learning algorithms, so you know where the fit and conflict between algorithms and real business applications is.”
JD Finance VP Peng Cao, who judged the challenge, said the winning project could perfectly fit Jingdong Gold Bullion. “Their understanding of the industry is in-depth and insightful.”
Zhiba Su and Ziang Zhao (Team Rocket) took second place and US$30,000 with an AI-driven loan product targeting international students from China. Alex Gajewski, Wanqi Zhu and Vivian Yang (Team Treelion) leveraged their pig identification technology to boost agricultural business, which earned them third place and US$15,000.
The annual JDD Global Data Challenge was hosted by JD Finance, a subsidiary of China’s largest e-commerce company by revenue, JD.com. JD Finance has served more than 500,000 corporate and 150 million individual clients. The company uses big data and industry-leading technology to provide comprehensive and modularized services to various financial institutions to increase revenues, improve efficiency and reduce costs.
The Challenge’s co-organizers were Sequoia Capital, a Menlo Park-based venture capital firm; and Synced, China’s leading machine intelligence media outlet.
Cao was joined on the judging panel by leading AI figures from academia and industry: Graphen CEO and Columbia University Adjunct Associate Professor Ching-Yung Lin, and Great Wall Club US GM Lawrence Li.
Special thanks to the following partners for their support of this challenge:
North America community partners:
Shinect, New England Chinese Information and Networking Association (NECINA), BeMyApp
Other promotional assistance agencies
U Michigan CSSA, Silicon Valley Data Science Practitioners (SVDSP), CMU CSSA, MIT CHIEF, Chinese Graduate and Postdoctoral Scholars Association at UC Berkeley (CGPSA), BitTiger, Data Application Lab, Seattle Entrepreneurship Club, HYSTA SVC, Kaggle Ark Group, Data Science Canada Group, NYU Data Science Group
Journalist: Tony Peng | Editor: Michael Sarazen
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