Team Argonauts IIT Roorkee shine as the National Runners Up of Optum Stratethon

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We focused more on the entire product instead of the underlying application. Our basic idea was to “sell our product to the investors” and not that of “showcasing our application”. In this case, we had assumed that the judges were our investors. This is what helped us bag the title of National Runners Up of Optum Stratethon.

The case and the challenges we faced

We worked on the problem for a month. The biggest challenge we faced was in feature engineering. The dataset was composed of 2 parts, one part was tabular while the other was a time series. There was no machine learning model that could simultaneously fit both the kinds of datasets. Hence, we performed feature engineering and converted the time series data into tabular data by taking the mean, median, first occurrence and last occurrence of all parameters in the time series data.

The National Finalists

7 teams in the Engineering track made it to the finale. The teams from IIT BHU and DTU were really tough competitors. It was no wonder that both these teams were amongst the top 3 teams. Both of them had used unique approaches to solve the given problem statement such as using a different dataset altogether and using natural language processing. These ideas never occurred to most of us and hence, it separated their product from the rest of the crowd.

Our team's forte: diverse skill-sets

Our team comprises a group of machine learning enthusiasts and technology geeks. We strive to build products using cutting edge technologies that can impact thousands of lives across the globe. But more than anything we enjoy building things and breathing life into them. There is no greater joy for us than to see our creation getting acknowledged in front of a large audience.

We have a myriad of diverse skill sets such as machine learning, cloud computing, product pitching, frontend development, content writing, etc. The team's strength was to efficiently combine all of these abilities into a single unit which reflected well in our final product. Working in a team made us realize that there was so much that we couldn't do alone. But nothing was impossible when we worked in a team. Surprisingly, we had no conflicts amongst ourselves when we were building the prototype.

The judgement and our major takeaways

All of the judges were senior leaders of Optum. They had a lot of experience and knowledge in diverse fields of machine learning, cloud computing, business modeling, etc. As a result, each and every submission was judged not only on its technical aspect but also as a product on the whole.

The overall event was really well organized, be it travel, lodgings, or the final presentation itself. There were talks on various topics from industry leaders which proved to be a great learning opportunity for all of us. We are grateful for being given a chance to present our product on such a grand stage and I think this sentiment is shared by all the teams present there. 

We have learnt a lot of different things, ranging from building production-grade machine learning models to efficient product management and even the dynamics of social interactions. The knowledge we gained was a perfect blend of technology and business.

Our awesome moment

If I had to choose one "awesome" moment amongst the many, it would definitely be when we were declared the National Runners Up of Optum Stratethon and called up on stage to take a commemorative photo. The reason was that the competition was really tough. In my honest opinion, it felt as if we had won by a hair's breadth.