Ateneo Data Science students are first runner-up in the Philippine Junior Data Science Challenge 2024

Three BS AMDSc juniors, Val Allen Eltagonde, Miguel Antonio Germar , and Annika Marie Yunque,  finished First Runner-up in the Final Round of the Philippine Junior Data Science Challenge 2024 (PJDSC 2024) held on 16 November 2024 at the Department of Information and Communications Technology, Diliman, Quezon City.

Eltagonde (DOST and Financial Aid scholar), Germar (Merit and DOST scholar), and Yunque (Director's List scholar) presented Padyak, a walkability and bikeability indexing model aimed at assisting local government units (LGUs) to understand the street-specific components affecting their city’s active transport experience and compare these between areas, across different commuters’ sensitivities to discomfort.

They applied their model to Mandaluyong City and produced three results: walkability and bikeability scores for discrete streets; discomfort vs. distance curves to compare areas within the city; and a customization tool where the relative importances of walkability and bikeability components can be adjusted by an LGU in the future, based on results from real mobility surveys, to generate new scores.

Hosted by the UP Data Science Society, PJDSC is an annual, nationwide data science competition for senior high school and undergraduate students. This year, participants were challenged to develop data science projects that address issues in urban mobility.