During the mid-year break, we hosted the 3rd annual Winter Data Analysis Challenge, and it’s been exciting to see the event grow and evolve over the past three years.
The Winter Data Analysis Challenge provides undergraduate students with an opportunity to showcase their creativity and analytical skills on a complex, real-world dataset. At the start of the challenge, students are given a dataset and, over three days, are encouraged and supported to integrate it with other large open datasets to generate meaningful insights.
Submissions are judged on analytical innovation, clarity of communication, critical thinking, and contextual understanding. Prizes are awarded for first, second, and third place.
This year, students worked with the New South Wales Government Transport Open Data, which includes entries and exits on Sydney trains and Opal card patronage data from January 2020 to July 2025. Participants were asked to explore patterns in how people move through the city and uncover the factors that influence these behaviours.
As is tradition, we wrapped up the challenge in Week 1 of Semester 2 with a celebratory pizza lunch and the announcement of this year’s winners.
2025 Winners
- First place: Darsh Parmar and Prachet Singh for their team entry: Are customer facilities and accessibility features linked to passenger volume at Sydney’s train stations?
- Second place: Emily Lewis Dando with a project titled: The Last Public Routes: Mapping the Final Step in Bus Privatisation
- Third place: Ryan Ng for the project titled: The Fracturing of the 9-to-5 Commute
Congratulations to all our place-getters! We’d also like to give honourable mentions to two team entries — one from Kristania Gunawan and Kristina Gunawan, and another from Pranav Lokhande, Paakhi Dodwani, and Nihira Sharma — as well as two outstanding individual entries from Lana Ilic and Lachlan McIntosh. All delivered impressive contributions.
The Winter Data Analysis Challenge is a highlight of the SPDS calendar. We love engaging with emerging talent and inspiring the next generation of data scientists to think critically, creatively, and contextually.
Thank you to Westpac Institutional Bank for supporting innovation and learning as a Silver Sponsor of the 2025 Winter Data Analysis Challenge.