Purdue TLI students win trip to Democratic National Convention

A five-student team of Technology Leadership and Innovation graduate students from Purdue Polytechnic Institute earned a trip to the Democratic National Convention next week after winning the SAP Project Dream Election 2016 earlier this month. (Photo/Purdue Polytechnic Institute) Download image

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A group of Technology Leadership and Innovation graduate students from Purdue Polytechnic Institute will experience first-hand the Democratic National Convention next week in Philadelphia.

The five-student Purdue team won the trip on July 1 as the overall award in the SAP Project Dream Election 2016 competition. The contest challenged teams to use SAP software to uncover insights about election data that could be used to encourage better voter turnout for elections.

Four of the team members will travel to Philadelphia July 25-28 to experience a major party political convention, participate in some of the affiliated activities and attend the SAP "We the Future" summit on July 26.

During the summit, the team will share the stage with members of the Democratic Future Forum and discuss the challenges of civil engagement in the digital world.

Team members are Kirti Chintalapudi, Arush Saxena, Susan Ely, Kurtis Homan and Arielle Mabon. Edie Schmidt, professor of technology leadership and innovation, served as their adviser.

The "Dynamite Data Diggers" used exploratory data analysis in the SAP competition to examine issues important to young and underrepresented voters in several swing states. They determined the most important issues for their target audiences were economic health and educational quality.

"Big data is a huge challenge right now. There is so much data available, especially through social media, and top-performing organizations are using data mining techniques to turn raw data points into actionable insights," Chintalapudi said.

The team submitted infographics and a video to explain their approach and how they would use the information to educate voters during the election.

"As every challenge presents opportunities, the ability to draw patterns, connect the dots and predict through big data analytics offers great untapped potential," Saxena said.

Social media creates so much data for each user that team members believe it is an integral part of reaching younger voters, one goal of the SAP Project Dream Election competition.

"Using social media platforms for civic engagement is extremely powerful," Chintalapudi said. "We were amazed at how much interest we garnered to get people to vote in the competition. We could use that same approach to get the younger population to vote."

Chintalapudi said the composition of the team helped strengthen their competition entry and it will broaden their outlook as they discuss issues with the country's Democratic Party leaders.

SAP and the Department of Technology Leadership and Innovation are providing transportation to the convention, accommodations and meals for the team. 

Writer: Brian L. Huchel, 765-494-2084, bhuchel@purdue.edu 

Sources: Kirti Chintalapudi, kchintal@purdue.edu

Arush Saxena, saxena15@purdue.edu