One of the best examples of this is UBS Pitch, which for the last three years has gathered students from universities across the US to put their minds together to come up with some innovative artificial intelligence solutions to financial problems we’ve posed. This year was slightly different because, not only was the event virtual, but we wanted the students to focus specifically on the different economic issues caused by the pandemic and how we could use AI to solve them.
At the beginning of the competition, there were 28 team submissions, which were then narrowed down to the top seven finalist teams. Each of these seven teams were mentored by two UBS executives (one business, one tech) which made for some friendly rivalry between students and UBS colleagues. There was everything to play for with the top prize of $10,000 and the chance for the students to expand their professional network with introduction to UBS executives. As the competition took place over nine and a half weeks, there was plenty of time for the mentors to bond with their teams and help to craft their final entries.
“The quality of submissions from the participating teams were top notch,” said Apurva Mehta, CTO for WMA IT, and mentor in the competition. “The top three teams, however, not only provided predictive models, but also associated their results with commercial applicability to UBS and to the state of New Jersey. With some additional data points, such solutions can help spark ideas within UBS, and help the state of New Jersey align investment thesis by town, district and county. Such models could be applicable in the future to other states as well.”