HM Treasury Hackathon – Solving Data Challenges for Central Decision Making

HM Treasury Hackathon – Solving Data Challenges for Central Decision Making

Why are we hacking?

Recent years have demonstrated that the UK’s fiscal and economic context can shift rapidly in response to major events. In these times, the government relies on up-to-date analysis and forecasts of economic factors to create new policy and adapt fiscal plans. Our goal is to find novel ways of exploiting new data and technology to hack analysis solutions which can feed into central decision making at the Treasury in advance of the spring Spending Review.

Treasury experts have highlighted a selection of high priority projects which provide options for investigating a variety of economic and data science challenges aimed at increasing the Treasury’s capability to respond quickly and with more insight to fiscal challenges.

What is the plan?

Over the course of 2 days, we will gather in London and Manchester with the goal of building up a network of experts on key treasury analysis.

Participants will form teams who chose one of the available projects where treasury experts have highlighted a need for more analysis.

At the end of the 2 days there will be a panel to review the final project prototypes and select the winning finalists which are deemed the most impactful.

Teams can be organised ahead of time or assigned by the hackathon organisers.


Projects:

• Nowcasting Consumption, Trade, and Business

Participants will find novel ways to update forecasts in UK consumption, investment, and trade through with the goals of increasing accuracy and capability of the forecasts. These economic determinants are critical to Treasury decision making therefore being able to access the forecast on a more frequent and up-to-date basis or with increased accuracy will allow for more informed policy decisions. Participants will explore using new machine learning techniques, and new data sources, including wrangling unstructured data with ai strategies, to build new model prototypes.

• Developing our 'whole system' view of the criminal justice system

Participants will explore new ways to harness, collate, model, and visualise data on demand in the criminal justice system. This could incorporate national and regional impacts on and of arrests, charges, prosecutions, courts, prison, and probation caseloads.

• Forecast and Analyse UK GDP

Participants to experiment with machine learning (ML) methods to create novel forecasts for UK GDP which they can compare these with traditional econometric models. They can then analyse their models to understand which economic variables are driving their predictions. This exploration can provide insights into which indicators are most impactful in predicting UK GDP, helping guide future forecasting efforts.

• Tracking and Visualising Global Trade Data with AI Tools:

When assessing international trade issues, the Treasury often needs to be able to track and visualise trade flows of goods and services, as well as trade barriers applied by different trading partners. Current trade data sources require painfully manual processes to collect and summarise bilateral trade flows and tariff rates. The challenge is to be able to create a pipeline which can automatically pull user-specified trade data from the public data sources and visualise the results. Accessibility of data and flexibility in visualisations of trade networks are critical.

Who Should Attend?
Anyone who has some experience working with data or code and is interested in collaborating on Treasury challenges is highly encouraged to participate. You do not need to be coding experts. Hackathons benefit most from a variety of skills, experience, and interests. Our goal is to have fun and learn while creating new data analysis solutions or learning machine learning and AI tools to exploit new data sources.

Those with a background in Economics, Data Science, Software Development, Data Engineering and more will have plenty of background to join in and provide meaningful insight. There will also be technical and subject matter experts on hand to support any hacking projects.

What to Expect?
This hackathon is designed to be a fun and inclusive experience. There will also be discussions on what it is like to work at the Treasury and what is involved in doing Data Science within the Civil service. Here's what you can look forward to:

• Collaborative Environment: Work in diverse teams to brainstorm and develop innovative solutions to real world problems. Mixed-skill teams ensure that everyone can contribute their unique perspective and learn from each other.
• Expert Guidance: Technical Support and Treasury experts can help offer insight and guidance throughout the hackathon.
• Hands-On Experience: Engage in hands-on activities and real-world problem-solving and design thinking.
• Networking Opportunities: This is a chance to meet new people, learn new skills, and have fun while working on meaningful projects. We will also be answering questions on what it is like to work in the Treasury.
• Prizes and Recognition: Pitch your idea to the judges for a chance to win a prize and more important, gain recognition for your innovative solutions.

When and where?

06 February - 07 February:

Manchester

1 Symphony Park, No. 2 Circle Square, Manchester M1 7FS

London

30 Fenchurch Street London EC3M 3BD