TigerGraph has launched a “Graph for All Million Dollar Challenge”. The competition asks individuals to submit entries that answer the question “How will you change the world with graph?”. Competitors need to use one of the 12 problem statements TigerGraph has already offered to competitors or to craft one themselves.
They then need to build a project using TigerGraphs graph analytics platform to uncover a transformative solution to the problem posed. Each team should then create a video demonstrating their solution and submit a URL and give access to the project GitHub code repository. They should also submit details of the project’s strengths against each of the four judging criteria.
The competition will be judged against four categories with winners for each category judging the project’s impact, creativity, boldness, and adaptability.TigerGraph further explains this as:
- Most Impactful: The project’s level of impact on social good and the community at large
- Most Innovative: The project’s level of ingenuity and the ability to identify new, never-imagined uses of graph
- Most Ambitious: The project’s overall ability to push the boundary of a graph to drive data insights.
- Most Applicable: The project’s relevancy to a wide range of organizations
Solving the worlds big problems
Graph databases have already been proven to solve many business problems and the innovative competition will aim to solve some of the worlds most complex. Whether people have access to the data they need will depend upon their dataset but this is an interesting challenge that for many, is an opportunity to gain funding and recognition.
Dr. Yu Xu, founder and CEO of TigerGraph commented: “Every day, more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are produced — that’s 18 zeroes. Within this data are answers to critical health, climate, and business-related questions, and graph technology identifies those patterns across and within the data to find the answers.
“We’re giving one million dollars to innovators who push the boundaries of graph and AI technology to uncover new, transformational ways to solve real-world issues. The challenge is officially on and we look forward to seeing thousands of registrants, hundreds of mind-blowing entries, and countless new ideas and concepts.”
TigerGraph has already proposed 12 problem statements:
- Monitor impact of climate warming in the Arctic
- Predict Global Crises
- Predict the next wave of COVID
- Find novel drug treatments
- Detect early Covid-19 mutated variants
- Foster critical thinking
- Reduce the noise of news search
- Manage your personal identity
- Develop effective public transportation systems
- Enable search for UN sustainable development goals
- Create STEM opportunities for women
- Find ethically sourced goods
The process for the Million Dollar Challenge
The competition is now open and entrants can enter submissions until 11.45 ET on April 20th. TigerGraph will announce the winners on May 23 at the Graph + AI Summit, and open conference. Full details of the rules and registration information are found here.
The judging panel is a mix of experts from the world of AI, Graph, analytics and industry experts and include:
- Usha Rengaraju, Principal Data Scientist and founder of NeuroAI
- Juan Sequeda, Principal Scientist at data.world
- Dan McCreary, Distinguished Engineer in AI, Optum
- James Pang Yan, PhD, Co-Director, Master of Science in Business Analytics at National University of Singapore
- Ashleigh Faith, Director, Knowledge Graph and Semantic Search at EBSCO
- Ellie Young, Founder at Common Action
Usha Rengaraju, Graph for All Million Dollar Challenge Judge commented: “TigerGraph’s challenge is structured to stretch the imagination of graph enthusiasts and test its limits. I’m excited to see teams coming together to create graph solutions that can impact society or shape the future for companies. There is so much data available in the world waiting to reveal patterns and relationships that will solve important global problems.”
The competition is likely to be fierce. TigerGraph has already signed up several notable partners who aim to submit entries, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Google Dev Library, data.world, GitHub, Kubrick Group, Microsoft Azure, Plotly, and Women Who Code.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
This is an innovative initiative by TigerGraph. The graph analytics vendor has already helped to progress solutions across many challenges within the business and the wider community. It has helped businesses save millions of dollars through actions taken because of the supply chain insights delivered by TigerGraph. It has also empowered medical providers to make real-time care recommendations to millions of patients and fueled countless COVID-tracking initiatives.
TigerGraph is now thinking beyond the possible and stretching the limits of what graph analytics are capable of. The limitation for most entrants will be the access to data, but this should not stop entrants from thinking outside the box. Even with limited access to datasets, they may be able to find the correlations and connections that could help solve some complex problems once that data becomes available.
This competition could spawn many startups. It will be interesting to see solutions and what people believe are the crucial problems that need solving today. For TigerGraph it is useful brand marketing. It may also indicate potential directions and industries that need help with solving solutions. Is it money worth spending? Hopefully for the greater good and also for TigerGraph.
