FICO Expands Educational Analytics Challenge with Historically Black Colleges and Universities to Inspire the Next Generation of Data Scientists

Morehouse College joins Bowie State University and Delaware State University this fall semester, as FICO launches its second annual analytics challenge to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in data science

BOZEMAN, Mont.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--FICO (NYSE: FICO):

Highlights:

• The FICO® Educational Analytics Challenge expands to include students from Morehouse College, Bowie State University, and Delaware State University, with more HBCUs to participate in the spring semester.
• For the 2024-25 school year, the real-world analytics challenge will focus on financial fraud detection, helping students identify anomalies and fraud features leveraged in a real-time fraud detection model.
• Students will learn how responsible AI techniques are crucial to protect and safely advance analytic practices.

Global analytics software leader, FICO announced today the second year of its FICO® Educational Analytics Challenge program created for students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The semester-long program features remote mentoring from FICO’s leading data scientists and in-person lectures by FICO’s Chief Analytics Officer, Dr. Scott Zoldi. This year, FICO is bringing the program to students at Morehouse College and continuing its work with Bowie State University and Delaware State University. Additional HBCU schools will participate in the spring semester starting in January 2025 as the program expands from its pilot phase.

“Diverse viewpoints and voices are necessary to develop any AI that is unbiased. FICO is doing something to address that need and working directly with students at HBCUs to encourage a more diverse future of data scientists. The Educational Analytics Challenge program not only empowers students to get a real-world experience with data analytics, but also to learn the fundamentals of building responsible, auditable, and ethical AI models to protect and safely advance AI practices for future generations,” said Dr. Scott Zoldi, Chief Analytics Officer at FICO.

Following the successful 2023-24 FICO Educational Analytics Challenge program year, students at Morehouse College, Bowie State University, and Delaware State University will turn their attention to a new set of challenges focused on AI, analytics, and financial fraud detection.

As part of this year’s program, students will be tasked with joining the fight against transaction fraud. Criminals today often commit financial fraud by mimicking legitimate banking behavior to secure billions in customer funds, and banks need to leverage real-time behavioral analytics and machine learning models to identify and prevent fraud. The Educational Analytics Challenge participants will use transactional behavior analytics to design and build their own real-time fraud detection models to identify anomalies and suspicious banking activity. Their models should be capable of being operationalized in the fight against fraud.

“Our partnership with FICO will give rising Morehouse Men the opportunity to sharpen their analytical skills and use their creativity and intellect to address a real-world problem in banking — transaction fraud,” said Alfred Watkins, Ph.D., Chair of the Computer Science Department at Morehouse College. “It is my hope that this fraud detection design competition will fuel a passion for data science in our students that inspires them to seek careers in the growing field of analytics, which is in dire need of their diverse backgrounds, experiences, and insights.”

“FICO’s work with the HBCU Partnership Challenge over the last year is an exceptional example of how public-private partnerships can work to provide mutual benefits while strengthening HBCU institutions,” said Congresswoman Alma S. Adams, Ph.D., representing North Carolina's 12th Congressional District. “FICO is impacting the lives of students, helping to build a strong representation of diversity across the data science community and to better prepare them to meet the changing needs of the workforce for generations to come,” concluded Congresswoman Adams.

In addition to hosting the competition, the FICO Educational Analytics Challenge also provides participating HBCUs with financial support to enhance analytics instruction and career resources so that students will learn more about opportunities available to them after graduation. For more information about how HBCUs can get involved in the FICO Educational Analytics Challenge, please contact Seyi Mclelland at [e-mail].

To learn more about the Educational Analytics Challenge:

• Dr. Scott Zoldi for Forbes Tech Council — Developing The Next Generation Of Data Scientists
• Dr. Scott Zoldi for FICO Blog — Using AI and Data Science to Fight Bias and Drive Opportunities
• HBCU Partnership Challenge — Congresswoman Alma Adams Celebrates FICO and Echo360 Joining HBCU Partnership Challenge

About FICO

FICO (NYSE: FICO) powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 200 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, insurance, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in more than 100 countries do everything from protecting 4 billion payment cards from fraud, to improving financial inclusion, to increasing supply chain resiliency. The FICO® Score, used by 90% of top US lenders, is the standard measure of consumer credit risk in the US and has been made available in over 40 other countries, improving risk management, credit access and transparency.

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