ASA DataFest@UofT

COVID-19 Virtual Data Challenge


Congratulations to the Winners


check it out here.




A full list of all the submissions can be found here.


Launch Video


Link to slides used in video



Competition starts June 1!



There is currently a lot of work being done on modeling direct health outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as prediction new cases or mortality rates. You can read more about the complexities of doing such analyses in the article "Why It’s So Freaking Hard to Make a Good COVID-19 Model”.

For this competition, we challenge you to explore the societal impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic other than its direct health outcomes. You can explore everything from the effects on pollution levels, transportation levels, or working from home. You can investigate changes in the number of people posting on TikTok with their families or do an analysis on online education. The focus is up to you! We just encourage you to be thoughtful and creative as you analyze data and communicate your insights about some of pandemic's impacts on society.


The challenge for this DataFest event is to

  • choose an outcome such as one of these (or something entirely different we haven’t thought of here!),
  • find the appropriate data to explore the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on this issue, and
  • present your findings (along with the dataset you used).


Finally, we have always framed ASA DataFest as a collaborative competition, but this is even more true this year. Local judges will still recognize projects that stand out from the rest on categories like Best Insight, Best Visualization, and Most Creative Data set or Topic, but we encourage you, now more than ever, to share sources you found useful, approaches you found to be fruitful, or methods you want to learn more about with each other.


Ready to join the competition?

Submit an application by Sunday, May 24, 23:59 EDT for your team to join the event. NB: The number of teams that will be selected to be evaluated by the judging panel is limited, although you may still participate, and use your project to build your professional portfolio with the support of the Independent Summer Statistics Community (ISSC).

Need some inspiration to help you get started? Check out the Resources for example topics and datasets.


Note that by participating in ASA DataFest: COVID-19 Virtual Data Challenge you are agreeing to the ASA Activities Code of Conduct, which applies to all interactions related to ASA DataFest.