Stamford Data Science Initiative

Hackathon

Whether you are just learning about crypto or have been a fan for years, join us for a 2-day Virtual Hackathon to participate in games, challenges and compete for $10,000 in prizes. You’ll also have the opportunity to interview for open jobs with our sponsors.

What is it?

Virtual Crypto Hackathon. A Hackathon is an event where coders and innovators use data to solve problems and create new business opportunities.

Problem statement: Join CoinDesk and TradeBlock to put your Data Science knowledge to work by identifying patterns in Cryptocurrency market data, detecting potentially fraudulent Blockchain transactions, and visualizing multidimensional time series data. For more information, click here.

When: February 17-19, 2022.

Who: UConn students of all grade levels and those familiar with coding from various majors are invited to compete.

Schedule & Prizes: Click to view

Application Deadline: February 10, 2022

FAQs

There will be plenty of instructions provided if you are not familiar with blockchains and bitcoin. In addition, there will be Q&A sessions with professors and industry experts.

Multiple data science techniques could be useful in solving the main problem including Statistical Machine Learning methods as well as Deep Learning models.

This is similar to a Kaggle competition in its problem statement and quantitative analysis of results, but very different in its interactive nature and focus on learning about blockchains and job opportunities within the industry.

All lunch & learns and other events are optional, but you don't want to miss out on any surprise giveaways.

Reach out to Rainer Nunez (rainer@tradeblock.com) for more information.

Speakers & Presenters

Kickoff

Beth Harris

Senior Technical Program Manager at TradeBlock

Dan Schwartz

Executive Director, Strategic Analytics & Initiatives at University of Connecticut

Matt Kummell

Director, Strategy & Operations at Digital Currency Group

Nitai Bran

Chief Strategy Officer of TradeBlock

Margaret Feeney

Director of UConn TIP Digital

Lunch & Learns

Digital Asset Industry Lunch & Learn

Kelly Ye

Head of Index Research, CoinDesk Indices

Will share her knowledge of the digital asset investment landscape and introduction to the Digital Asset Classification Standard (DACS).

Shubhankar Tyagi

Product Manager, CoinDesk

Shares his insight on the importance of understanding the effects of monetary supply on crypto price movements and how to gauge next bull or bear run.

Tech Stack Lunch & Learn

Paul Weiss

VP of Engineering, TradeBlock

Join Paul Weiss, VP of Engineering, TradeBlock as he shares his knowledge on tech stack and the “how to” when handling digital assets. This is an informative and interactive workshop where questions are highly encouraged!

Ask Me Anything (AMA)

Interested in learning about firms specializing in digital assets? Uncover your opportunity! If you are curious about business strategy, technology and/or career pathing, this panel of professionals offers an interactive Q&A to discover more about CoinDesk Indices and TradeBlock. The panel includes:

Paul Weiss

VP of Engineering, TradeBlock

Nitai Bran

Chief Strategy Officer, TradeBlock

Rainer Nunez

Technical Recruiter, Coindesk

Our Sponsors

TradeBlock

TradeBlock's mission is to be the market leading institutional crypto platform that streamlines liquidity access, trading workflows, reduces costs and enables regulatory compliance for market participants, through standardized connectivity to key infrastructure and service providers.

Website Link

CoinDesk Indices

CoinDesk Indices are the industry standard for institutional single- and multi-asset benchmarks for crypto assets. The flagship CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (XBX) has been in operation continuously since 2014. Financial institutions rely on the XBX and other CoinDesk Indices products to benchmark billions of dollars in assets under management and to price hundreds of millions in over-the-counter transactions, daily.

Website Link

Mentors

Below you’ll find professors that will be mentors for the virtual Hackathon.

Kriti Bhargava

Assistant Professor in Residence

kriti.bhargava@uconn.edu

Available from 3pm - 5pm on Friday, February 18th

View Bio

Phil Bradford

Associate Professor in Residence

phillip.bradford@uconn.edu

Available from 9am - 5pm on Saturday, February 19th

View Bio

Interested in job opportunities with our sponsors?

For job and internship opportunities at CoinDesk Indices and TradeBlock please visit https://boards.greenhouse.io/coindesk