Altice Labs, invited by UC Business (University of Coimbra) and UPTEC (University of Porto), participated in 2021 in the first edition of the Santander Data Challenge, an academic entrepreneurship program focused on data valorization. The program aimed to develop business ideas focused on the real needs and challenges of companies, namely challenges related to management, valorization and security of data.
In addition to Altice Labs (Telco), other companies participated, such as BluePharma (Pharma), Bosch (SmartBuildings), Prozis (eCommerce) and Santander (Banking).
Altice Labs, as the company representing the Telco vertical of the program, presented four challenges to the Data Challenge competitors: 1. TV service recommendations; 2. How technological is the customer’s home? 3. Promotion of the environmental quality of cities; 4. Sustainability of societies and cities of the future. Of the proposed challenges, three student teams chose the “TV service recommendations” challenge and another team chose the “Sustainability of societies and cities of the future” challenge. These teams were made up of students from NOVA-IMS, ISEP, UBI and ISCTE.
The program ran from June to December 2021, in a fully remote mode, with a special focus on the months of October, November and December, the period in which the teams worked on the chosen challenges and developed their business ideas. During this period, Altice Labs closely collaborated with the four teams competing in the Telco vertical, through follow-up and mentoring sessions.
On the 16th of December, the final presentations of each of the business ideas took place. In this session, the team from the Technology and Innovation Strategy department was accompanied by Roger Salgado, from the Digital, Internet and Television department in the evaluation of the business ideas and the selection of the winning team. The Telco vertical award, worth 2.500 euros, sponsored by Altice Labs, was given to the team that presented the “HRS – Hybrid Recommendation System” business idea, a system capable of leveraging data related to the user profile (demographics, subscribed channels, etc.) and the respective consumed contents (most watched programs, time per program, etc.), using either the contents available in the box or the contents on VOD platforms.
In parallel and still in the context of the Data Challenge program, Altice Labs attended the talks “NexDT- Digital” with Luís Cortesão, from the Technology and Innovation Strategy department, and “Industry Talk” with Pedro Neves, from the Network Services and Platforms department, both on the subject of data valorization.