Despite starting the competition three hours late, a team of four SFU computing science graduate students took home the $5,000 student prize at the Canadian Open Data Experience (CODE) 2015, a 48-hour hackathon.

In the hackathon, which opened February 20, each team had 48 hours to comb through open data made available by the Government of Canada and build a functioning app using the data. Ultimately, teams were judged in “five areas of competency: user experience, use of open data, innovation, potential, and functionality.”

The teams had three categories on which to focus their app: youth employment, business opportunities, and healthy living. The “SFU Data Crunchers” team of four, consisting of three members specializing in natural language processing — Bradley Ellert, Jasneet Sabharwal, and Maryam Siahbani — and one member in the professional master’s program in big data — Jonathan Bhaskar — decided to focus on youth.

Bhaskar had only found out about the hackathon in an email from a TA a few hours before. With the contest starting at 6 p.m. on February 20, the team thought they were starting just on time.

However, while reading the rules, they noticed that the time was in Eastern Standard Time, as the competition was based in Toronto, and had instead started three hours behind.

The team spent the first day sifting through the approximately 200,000 data sets and trying to come up with a way to put them all together. This was a decided disadvantage, as the other teams who had learned about the hackathon earlier were able to look at the data sets before the 48-hour window.

“We [later] learned that some of the other teams had been brainstorming in the week leading up to the competition,” Ellert said. “Our first day was spent planning. There were times we didn’t think we’d even be able to come up with a concrete idea in time.”

However, before long they had an idea: an app that helps students find out the cost of a post-secondary education, one which not only factors in tuition fees but also compares the cost of renting or university housing.

“After a lot of going in circles, we kept coming back to the same idea that higher education is the solution to solving high youth unemployment rates,” Ellert noted.

They found data that showed the average rent in all the cities across Canada, along with the price of university housing. As well, they used the SFU Library to find the data set for tuition fees all across Canada, as it was not available in the data sets released by the Canadian government.

The final product was “High School Down, Where Next?” which allows the user to compare the tuition fees of universities all across Canada, right next to the average price of living near the university.

“This is a very useful tool for students. Most of the competitors that are on the market don’t allow you to look at all the data at the same time, and while doing your research it can become a big information overload,” said Sabharwal. “You don’t even have to know where you want to start searching.”

The team made the top 15 out of 125 submissions and 1,300 participants, and flew to Toronto on March 16 to pitch their app in person. The judges saw the potential in the app, and awarded the team the student prize.

For now, the app is done — Bhaskar and Sabharwal noted that the members of the team are busy with their academic work. However, Sabharwal said that the team has some interest in continuing the project.

New recreation facility deal

At the SFU Senate meeting on May 19, senators discussed the university’s intent to accept the offer by Collegiate Infrastructure Solutions Inc. (CIS) to build a 50,000 square foot facility in the athletics precinct at no cost to SFU. This would be in exchange for a lease of approximately 3.5 acres of land in Discovery Park, where a school of chiropractic — entirely independent of SFU — would be constructed on the land and released back to SFU after 65 years.

Senator Daniel Leznoff raised the issue during the question period, enquiring after the status of the deal and why it hasn’t been made “common knowledge.”

While the deal is not yet set in stone, president Andrew Petter explained that — based on results from the consultation process — SFU’s board of governors agreed to issue a letter of intent during their June 26, 2014 meeting.

President Petter added that a timeline for construction should be available in four to six months, and planning and design will begin once the agreement between CIS and the BC Chiropractic Association (BCCA) is completed.

International student tuition increase

The student senators’ caucus posed a question to the Senate regarding the Maclean’s rankings revealing a decreasing satisfaction of international students at SFU in what the student senators pointed out to be a “downward trend.”

They articulated a particular concern with increasing tuition and reiterated a request to add a grandfather clause that exempts students who began their degree before the increases were announced, and therefore weren’t expecting to pay the higher fees.

Senator and VP Academic John Driver explained that it is not the responsibility of Senate to set tuition, but he did note that 25 per cent of the increased revenue would be put towards funding bursaries and services for international students.

“With regards to these increases being a surprise, which is the language used in the question, I should let everyone know that these changes were first announced in the fall of 2012, during the budget consultation process,” said Driver. “We made it clear this was a three year planned increase.”

Driver noted that the increases would bring SFU more in line with other BC institutions, and that guaranteeing a fixed price in Canadian dollars would not ensure that the fees wouldn’t change for international students paying in their native currency.

Watches may be disallowed in exams

Senator Tracey Leacock expressed a concern with the specificity of a Senate committee recommendation regarding disallowing watches in final exams.

Senator Panayiotis Pappas explained that it was only meant as a recommendation and provision of support to instructors from the academic integrity committee, should they decide to disallow watches. Furthermore, if they do so, the instructor must ensure that students have access to “live time information.”

The conversation spiralled into a discussion on the specificity of disallowing watches and the university’s ability to keep up with rapidly developing technology.

Senator Lynne Quarmby suggested, “this an arms race we’re destined to lose, and that maybe what we need to be looking at is our teaching and learning and our methods of examining more than beating the technology.”

Senator Leznoff expressed the need to participate in the “arms race” and proposed the use of tracking technology to locate devices being used to access the web during an exam.

UBC researcher looks for a sensitivity gene

A UBC study shows that genes may be in charge of sensitivity to emotional information in humans.

UBC psychology professor and researcher Rebecca Todd believes that there is a genetic variant that influences how one perceives emotionally relevant triggers more sharply.

This gene could lead researchers to finding different approaches to treating trauma. Although the study is not inclusive of all ethnic populations and different age groups in Canada, Todd says it could provide a breakthrough in how trauma is addressed.

With files from The Ubyssey

Party leaders talk sustainability at U of O

The Faculty of Social sciences at the University of Ottawa hosted a political discussion about environmental sustainability with the three major political parties in Canada. The debate focused on different parties’ policies when it comes to environmental issues and how they are incorporated into their platforms for the upcoming election.

Despite party platform differences, the political parties present at the debate agreed that there needs to be regulations on Canadian corporations’ carbon output.

With files from The Fulcrum

UVic accused of racist hiring practises

A letter sent to the Visual Arts department chair at the University of Victoria stated concerns of the University excluding an Aboriginal candidate from being hired for an assistant professor position.

The letter, which was sent to the Department Chair Paul Walde and was signed by 27 faculty members and individuals, asserts that the hiring process was “biased against Indigenous candidates.”

The chair refused to comment on the grounds that it would breach the confidentiality of the hiring process.

With files from The Martlet

Woodwards

Co-presented by SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement, Thursday May 14 offered “An Evening with Willie Thrasher and Linda Saddleback” at the Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre.

Thrasher is an Inuk musician from Aklavik, Inuvik who writes music that reflects his Aboriginal heritage and life story. The night was full of live music, archival visuals, and a vinyl DJ set of Indigenous music.

Harbour Centre

Last week’s Lunch Poems at SFU featured Chelene Knight and Dina Del Bucchia on May 20 at the Teck Gallery in SFU’s Harbour Centre campus.

Knight is an SFU alumna, who completed SFU’s The Writer’s Studio program for creative writing. Del Bucchia is co-artistic director of Real Vancouver Writers’ Series and the author of novels such as Coping with Emotions and Otters.

At the 2015 CFL Draft held on Tuesday, May 12, Clan wide receiver Lemar Durant was picked to be a Calgary Stampeder.

The 6’2” Coquitlam native, who led the SFU football team in receiving yards in the 2014 season with 685 yards in eight games and amassed 2,392 receiving yards in 25 games over three seasons, was selected 18th overall by the Grey Cup champions.

“It was kind of a relief finally [getting] where I wanted to be and what I worked all these years for,” Durant told The Peak on the morning of Thursday, May 14.

Before the draft, Durant was projected to go in the first round, with the final CFL Scouting Bureau Rankings placing him eighth overall, near the end of the first round — and behind a few players who had signed with NFL teams, meaning that they would be picked later in the draft as they would be unlikely to sign in the CFL.

Instead, he fell to the final pick of the second round, and despite being the top ranked receiver going into the draft, he was the fourth receiver picked. Some analysts cited a perceived lack of intensity as the reason for the fall in draft position.

Durant himself was shocked, tweeting before he was drafted, “This is one of the most shocking things I have ever been through.

“I thought I was going to go before I did,” he admitted Thursday. “It makes me just want to show teams and other people that I should have been picked higher.”

Durant was also adamant that despite falling to the second round, he is not going to “let it affect [him] in a negative way.”

He believes that everything turned out for the best. “It helped the whole thing. Calgary was one of the teams I wanted to get picked [for],” said Durant. “Once they picked me, I was really happy — it never hurts going to the best team in the league”

Called the “steal of the draft” by TSN analyst Farhan Lalji, Durant believes that he can be an impact player next season.

“I just got to get used to the Canadian game a little bit, and then after that, I’m always a guy that wants to try to be the best,” he noted. “I think if I work hard, then I can get a starting spot and make a big impact right away.”

In the end, Durant was the only SFU player drafted this year, surprising considering the fact that eight Clan athletes were invited to CFL Combines, and two — Durant and defensive back Matt Isherwood — to the national combine.

However, Durant isn’t the only one receiving a shot at the CFL. SFU Football announced Wednesday, May 13 that former Clan running back Chris Tolbert, who tried out as defensive back at the regional combine in Edmonton, was invited to a BC Lions tryout. As an American, Tolbert was ineligible for the draft but can sign with a CFL team as a free agent.
In addition, SFU Football announced that fellow undrafted regional combine attendee Bibake Uppal has signed with the BC Lions.