Tourism and Economy

Data Science Challenge

The CDU IT Code Fair’s Data Science Challenge offers a platform to apply data science expertise and innovative thinking. Explore real-world data and showcase talent, making a real impact on the future of the Northern Territory. Tackle real challenges, analyse trends, and present solutions that address key issues in areas like tourism, business growth, and community development.

Registration closes on 25 Sep 2025

By analysing publicly available customer review data (Google Maps, TripAdvisor, Instagram or travel blogs), participants are invited to identify the tourist feedback and overall sentiment, and propose actions that either businesses or the government can take to grow tourism interest and create economic opportunities for the Territory. Ideally, participants should be able to predict the impact of these recommendations on tourism numbers and value for the economy.

Participants will primarily focus on analysing tourist review data to identify key feedback and overall sentiment, and on proposing actionable recommendations for businesses or government to support tourism growth and enhance economic value.

Participants may consider using a range of algorithms and techniques, including but not limited to text preprocessing, sentiment analysis, topic modeling, clustering, recommendation systems, predictive modeling, and data visualisation tools.

Participants are encouraged to leverage the latest advancements in machine learning and deep learning to address any identified challenging problems.

You will showcase your project to industry judges in person on the Challenge Day date and venue as stated below.

What is Required?

Participants are required to utilise publicly available customer review data (Google Maps, TripAdvisor, Instagram or travel blogs). They may combine these datasets with other relevant external data sources to enhance analysis and solutions.

Rules of Competition

Participants must be in teams of 2 to 4 students.

The data science solution must be developed in Python. Results must be submitted as .py scripts or Jupyter Notebooks written in Python.

There is no restriction on the specific Python packages.

Submission

Please submit your substantial work-in-progress by the Project Submission Deadlines stated below. You may include Python scripts, all processed datasets, and the requirements.txt file (if applicable) to replicate your Python environment.

Team Presentation

DURATION: 10 minutes pitching + 5 mins Q&A per team

Challenge Day
08 Oct 2025, 09:00 – 17:00
Festival Learning Space 1.12, Danala | ECP, Darwin
Charles Darwin University

Eligibility

All students who are currently enrolled on CDU’s Information Technology coursework programs (undergraduate, postgraduate, TAFE, short courses)

Higher Degree by Research (HDR) students are not eligible to participate.

Judging Criteria

Submissions will be judged according to the following criteria: datasets, overall creativity and originality, technical sophistication, contextual relevance and practicality, ethical considerations and presentation.