North-West University (NWU) students, Matt Lourens and Dehan Opperman, have proven that they are the cream of the crop when it comes to statistics, programming and mathematics.

The duo, who are busy with their master’s degrees in business analytics and data mining respectively, recently came first in the second MiWay 24-hours Actuarial Hackathon competition.

During this annual competition 25 students from various universities around the country use data science or actuarial sciences to solve an insurance-related problem.  

“Winning the competition feels surreal - it still feels like we imagined the whole thing,” says Dehan. “Scoring first place is the icing on the cake. The competition was a great experience, and we had the opportunity to network with great people.”

24 hours of blood, sweat and happiness

Using a combination of mathematics and statistic models, the participants had to come up with sound solutions that could help the insurer estimate the cost of windshield claims.

Each team could submit their results four times per hour. “There was a live scoreboard that showed all the competitors’ results. Within those 24 hours we moved up and down the scoreboard until our last submission which put us in first place,” says Dehan.

When asked about the hardest part about the competition, Dehan says starting the contest was an uphill battle, since neither of them have experience within the insurance industry.

“We finally found our feet after we had a few insightful discussions about what was needed from us with the MiWay team.”

He says networking with the other students and the insurer’s team about statistics and mathematics was one of the greatest moments in the competition. “Another ‘a-ha’ moment for us was realising that we can apply our statistics, mathematics and programming skills to various fields.”

The duo walked away with a cash prize of R20 000 which they have since split between them.

 Matt Lourens and Dehan Opperman are the winners of the MiWay 24-hours Actuarial Hackathon competition.