It was a pleasure working with UConn, CABA and Prof Eigo for the capstone project. The students in the business analytics course were very creative, enthusiastic and resourceful as they went about using our product and the provided datasets to extract insights from marketing-related datasets for our customers.

Our mission at Unscrambl is to simplify access to data and insights for both technical and non-technical business users using natural language-based interfaces. At the time we started working on the capstone, we had released a couple of new features, especially around automated data story-telling, along with an emphasis on providing insights on marketing use-cases. The students in the course were given the challenge of using our conversational AI product for exploring marketing datasets from multiple customers, creating stories from these datasets, and coming up with story templates that we could incorporate in our product.

We gained a lot of value from the project, both in terms of ideas for marketing data story templates as well as in terms of valuable insights on the usability of our product. The students also provide great feedback on how our product could be further improved in terms of new user on-boarding, analytics and collaboration features. The students were also given the opportunity to present their findings to our customers, which they did a great job in. We hope that they gained valuable experience in uncovering and presenting stories on real-world datasets.

Anand Ranganathan
Chief AI Officer

 

Voya’s Investment Management business sends a wide variety of emails to current and potential distribution partners (consultants, advisors, fund analysts, etc.). These emails contain market commentary, product information, webinar invitations and many other topics intended to build engagement and add value.

Students were challenged to identify and quantify attributes that lead to engaging email communications from Voya.

Some potential insights:

• What characteristics drive the success of individual emails?
• What sequences of emails affect engagement?
• When should emails be sent to drive the greatest engagement?

Student response to this first-time UConn-Voya partnership event was outstanding.

“It was a lot of fun working with the students and seeing what they came up with. They had a fresh perspective on real challenges we’re working on today. It was very satisfying to be able to talk through their thought process and engage with such a talented and motivated group.”
-Duncan Sanford, Analytics Director, Analytics Center of Excellence

“This analytics challenge was a great example of how we’re building partnerships with leading universities to create a pipeline of ideas and talent. Through internships and analytics projects like this one, we’re creating a buzz about Voya on campuses that’s helping to generate new insights as well as to compete for talent.”
-Tom Hamilton, VP, Analytics Center of Excellence