SAS Hackathon 2025 | Individual Student Track | Participant Guide + Discussion Forum

[#1]

Hackers Unite!  It's finally here!

 

And by "here" - I mean that SAS Hackathon 2025 officially kicks off on Monday, September 15th.  Which - depending upon when you read this - means that there is still time to sign up today: https://www.sas.com/sas/events/hackathon.html

Once you're signed up for the Student Track of the 2025 SAS Hackathon, this article serves two purposes:

• An easy-to-use participant guide with steps on how to prepare.
• A discussion forum where you can crowdsource support from the broader SAS Community.

How to prepare for the SAS Hackathon Student Track

1. Take digital training

Join SAS Skill Builder for Students to get free access to digital learning to help you prepare for the game. (Note: an academic email address is required.)

Once in SAS Skill Builder for Students, we recommend you take:

Machine Learning using SAS Viya

Modern Data Science with SAS® Viya® Workbench and Python

2. Register for free learning software

Cortex is played using our free learning software. You will have the option of using:

SAS Viya for Learners – A low- or no-code option, perfect for those new to analytics or SAS.

SAS Viya Workbench for Learners – Code in your preferred programming language. Best for more experienced hackers.

3. Add important dates to your calendar

Date	Event
Sept 15	Game begins
Sept 15 10:00-11:30 AM EDT or Sept 15 3:00-4:30 PM EDT	Kick-off session: Learn how to play SAS Cortex for Academics, including game set up and leaderboard submission
Sept 22 10:00-11:30 AM EDT	Office Hours: Take your predictive modeling to the next level
Sept 29 10:00-11:30 AM EDT	Office Hours: General game support. Bring your questions!
Oct 6 10:00-11:30 AM EDT	Office Hours: Last week! Join us for guidance on how to refine your models before the last leaderboard submission
Oct 10 12:00 PM EDT	Leaderboard closes. Winner announced.

Discussion Forum

Post your comments and questions below — we’ll be here to support you on your hacking journey!

[LGroves]

I'll post this one right away - as I suspect it will come up several times in the Hack.  But if your SAS Profile is currently linked to a non-academic email address, then you won't be able to access our software and SAS Skill Builder for Students. 

Fix that issue by reading @Rachel_McLawhon's useful article here: Oops! Need to Update Your SAS Profile to an Academic Email?

Happy Hacking!

[LGroves]

The keen eye will note that we're running two kickoff sessions on Monday.  Why?  Well, with nearly 1k students registered for the Student Track - we are trying to be as accommodating with schedules as we can be.  So, please join us for one of the sessions on Monday and learning all about the Cortex Analytics Simulation game developed by HEC Montreal!

[SammyT]

@LGroves will there be recordings of the kickoff and other weekly sessions? Thank you for having me:)

[brenna1]

Where do we join the kickoff sessions?

[LGroves]

Ah - sorry that you didn't get the emails, @SammyT @ + @brenna1!  I'll post the info here... because one of the session is now:

Sept 15 10:00-11:30 AM EDT	Kick-off session | Option A: Learn how to play Cortex, including game set up and leaderboard submission	Join Zoom Meeting Meeting ID: 966 5719 1303 Passcode: SAS
Sept 15 03:00-04:30 PM EDT	Kick-off session | Option B: Learn how to play Cortex, including game set up and leaderboard submission	Join Zoom Meeting Meeting ID: 983 6531 6111 Passcode: SAS

[LGroves]

And, additionally, know that the sessions will be recorded and end up back in the SAS Cortex for Academics learning portal, here: https://learn.sas.com/course/view.php?id=8417

FYI - You'll need to activate the SAS Cortex for Academics portal firs, with an course activation email that we'll send to your email.  So, please look for that email first! 

[SammyT]

Thank  you @LGroves. Looking forward to looking at the recorded session when it is available.

[SammyT]

@LGroves I am creating a github repository of the fundraising project and want to know if there are any issues with setting it to public. The repository contains all the downloadable files of the game.

[LGroves]

Love that you asked this question - @SammyT!  It shows to me that you're using WFL and a Hacker at heart.  Yay!

My recommendation: make any files you create public - so that you can share them with a potential future employer later, as part of your coding portfolio.  For the source SAS files created by HEC Montreal, stick them in a folder behind a firewall (i.e., a private repo or folder), just to protect their IP.

Deal?  And thanks again for asking this question!

[SammyT]

Thank you @LGroves 

[LGroves]

Happy Friday Hackers!

Two thoughts before I round out my week.  And I hope that they're helpful.

(1) Each student gets a maximum of 25 uploads to the SAS Hackathon 2025 - Student Track leaderboard.  Why? Well, we don't want you to game the game with a brute force solution.  Additionally, I'm hopeful that you'll play - then learn a bit using the eLearning courses in the SAS Skill Builder for Students - then model some more... and so on.  Learning + modeling here is recursive and we've got a month.  So, it's a marathon and not a sprint 🙂

(2) Office hours are next Monday at 10 am Eastern Standard Time!  Please join us if you can for real time support.  Here are the times + links to the upcoming office hours:

Date	Event	Details
Sept 22 10:00-11:30 AM EDT	Office Hours: Take your predictive modeling to the next level	Join Zoom Meeting Meeting ID: 966 5802 7077 Passcode: SAS
Sept 29 10:00-11:30 AM EDT	Office Hours: General game support. Bring your questions!	Join Zoom Meeting Meeting ID: 919 5783 2637 Passcode: SAS
Oct 6 10:00-11:30 AM EDT	Office Hours: Last week! Join us for guidance on how to refine your models before the last leaderboard submission	Join Zoom Meeting Meeting ID: 955 2072 9472 Passcode: SAS
Oct 10 12:00 PM EDT	Leaderboard closes. Winner announced!

Go get em this weekend!

Cheers!

[Everly]

Hi, just want to clarify something: Are variables such as TotalGift and MaxGift defined as including this year’s donations, or are they cumulative only up to last year?

[antonbcristina]

Great question @Everly! In the training datasets, these types of variables contain historical information (10 years worth), not including LastYear and ThisYear donation information. In the scoring datasets the timeline is shifted up by a year, so these variables would contain historical information + LastYear information, but excludes this year which we now refer to as last year.