Congratulations to participants of the recently concluded the WiDS Datathon Challenge 2023.   The Women in Data Science (WiDS) initiative aims to inspire and educate data scientists worldwide, regardless of gender, and to support women in the field. This year's datathon theme was "Adapting to Climate Change by Improving Extreme Weather Forecasts". Participants were provided with data sets and tasked with improving sub-seasonal forecasts through the fusion of machine learning techniques and traditional physics-based forecast models.

The datathon ran from January 4th to March 1st. The WiDS Trinidad and Tobago Ambassador, Dr. Letetia Addison and her team hosted workshops, spotlight talks and fireside chats, with feature addresses from both international and local data scientists. 
14th January 2023 - Information session on the WIDS Datathon Challenge 2023 
21th January 2023 - Introduction to Data Science and Machine Learning - Interactive tutorial
28th January 2023 - Team Building Session for prospective Datathon participants
4th February 2023 -  Workshop 1: Data Science Overview & the WiDS 2023 Datathon Challenge
11th February 2023 -  Workshop 2: Data Science Methods at a glance
18th February 2023 -  Workshop 3: Finished training your ML Model: What Next?
4th March 2023 - Spotlight Talk: AI Applications in Agriculture in the Caribbean, Ms. Fazeeia Mindy Mohammed
11th March 2023 - Fireside Chat:  Women in Data Science - Stories from the fields, Attitudes and perceptions about data science from the female perspective

Global participation involved more than 750 teams spanning 100 countries.  Locally 6 teams participated totalling 23 Individuals - 13 females and 10 males.  Local teams were ranked as follows (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering students/graduates highlighted in bold).

1st. place - Team Pandalytics; Giatri Lalla, Arianne Baliramsingh, Kirstin Sylvester (Global rank: 66)
2nd. place - Team Data Buddies; Nicholas Smith, Kimberley Gillette, Lilliam Norori, Videsh Jagai (Global rank: 189)
3rd. place - Team Thermosensors; Mercedes Quammie, Navin Dookeram, Anesha Deonarine, Aidan Pinard (Global rank: 348)
4th. place - Team Data Jedi's; Fazeeia Mohammed, Narvelle Ferdinand, William Pyke, Stephen Jogie (Global rank: 496)
5th. place - Team SADR; Shannon-Rae Hackett, Anfernee Charles,Riana Kandhai, Deandre Radgman (Global rank: 587)
6th. place - Team Operation-Cold-Brew; Shankar Ramharack, Priya Ramdial, Varsha Ramsahai, Rommit Gidla (Global rank: 655)

The top three teams received cash prizes sponsored by TTNIC.  All participants received t-shirts sponsored by PwC Trinidad and Tobago.

A special thanks to Dr. Letetia Addison, the WiDS T&T Ambassador, and the participating mentors from TTLAB.

Details on the events can be found on the WIDS T&T website and WiDS T&T LinkedIN. Recordings for all events are available on WiDS T&T YouTube. 

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