NEWS

OPT Group’s SIGNATE Inc. (Head Office: Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo; President and CEO: Shigeru Saito), a provider of AI development and data scientist human resource recruitment and development services, and Mynavi Corporation (Head Office: Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo; President and CEO: Nobuyuki Nakagawa) will jointly hold the first “Mynavi × SIGNATE Student Cup 2018,” a competition-based internship dedicated to data scientists. This is the first attempt by SIGNATE to hold a data scientist competition for university students only. Algorithms answering the theme will be accepted until November 23 (Friday), and an after-event will be held on December 19 (Wednesday) that will also be attended by various companies.

In research published by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in June 2016, it was estimated that about 97,000 people are currently employed in advanced IT, which is a shortage of about 15,000. This shortage is expected to grow to 48,000 people by 2020. The flipside of the recent spectacular growth in the use of AI and big data is the worldwide shortage of data scientists that are indispensable for this growth.
* From “Findings of METI’s Study of Recent Trends and Future Estimates Concerning IT Human Resources”

This project is a competition-based internship for data analysis whose purpose is to discover and develop talented data scientist human resources. The competition will be held jointly with Mynavi Corporation, the operator of “Mynavi,” the largest recruitment information website in Japan, which supports the job seeking of students.

The theme of the competition will be “J League Crowd Attendance.” The students will perform predictive analysis based on data points such as past numbers, team names and the weather, and submit an algorithm to SIGNATE. The competition will be decided based on the effectiveness of the algorithm. The winners will be awarded total prizes of 1 million yen, and will receive the opportunity of making a presentation at the event to be held in December. Several companies will participate in this event, giving the students the chance to receive feedback from people who are actually working as data scientists and discuss issues with them. Furthermore, all “Mynavi 2020” members can take the online courses provided by SIGNATE, helping the students to improve their skills.

Mynavi × SIGNATE Student Cup 2018”

<Schedule>
- November 23 (Friday), 2018: Deadline for submission to SIGNATE
- Around start of December 2018: Winners determined
- December 19 (Wednesday), 2018: After-event
<Entrant Qualifications>
A student who attends a school in Japan, such as a university, graduate school, technical college or vocational school
　　　*All students are eligible, including doctoral students *Students with full-time jobs are not eligible *Individuals or teams may enter

<After-event>
Date and time: December 19 (Wednesday), 2018; 15:00 to 18:00 (provisional)
Location: Mynavi Room A, JR SHINJUKU MIRAINA TOWER 12F
Agenda: Opening / Award ceremony / Winner presentations / Time for talking with sponsors / Party
　　　　 　*Please understand that the agenda may change.
<Webpage with Details>
https://signate.jp/competitions/137