Graph for All Million Dollar Challenge aims at uncovering potential solutions to global issues: Dr Yu Xu, CEO, TigerGraph

TigerGraph recently launched the “Graph for All Million Dollar Challenge”, a global search for innovative ways to harness the power of graph technology and machine learning to solve real world problems. The challenge brings together brilliant minds to build innovative solutions to better our future with one question: “How will you change the world with graph?”. Dr Yu Xu, CEO, TigerGraph recently spoke to Dataquest about how the challenge aims at helping innovators who push the boundaries of graph and AI technology to uncover new, transformational ways to solve real world issues.

DQ: Could you tell us about the Graph for All Million Dollar Challenge in detail?

Dr Yu Xu: The Graph for All Million Dollar Challenge is a global search for innovative ways to harness the power of graph technology and machine learning to solve real-world problems. Through the challenge, TigerGraph aims to democratize graph by providing contestants with the freedom, tools, and resources to develop solutions that they are passionate about  using graph technology. 

Unlike other challenges, Graph for All Million Dollar Challenge is unique because participants can work on any problem - anything that they are passionate about. Defining a problem isn’t required to participate, there are more than a dozen problem statements created by domain experts that participants can select to work on.  

With over 1,100 registrations from more than 90 countries just one month after its launch, this competition showing graph is will help further put graph technology on the map, by getting developers working on initiatives such as climate change, the quality of healthcare, and protecting individuals from fraud, to use graph technology to create a profound impact on our world.

The TigerGraph Graph for All Million Dollar Challenge will be judged by a jury committee of the world’s brightest and most recognizable data scientists, professors, PhDs, distinguished engineers, and founders of global companies focusing on AI, analytics, knowledge graph, and other industry experts with deep knowledge of graph technology, graph use cases, and graph deployments. The judging committee includes eight PhDs, three academics from top universities, an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, a marine geoscientist, and a 2x Kaggle Grand Master. TigerGraph engineers and product experts will also join the panel as employee judges. Global challenge judges include:

• Dave DeCaprio, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of ClosedLoop AI
• Haris Dindo, PhD, Chief Technology Officer at SHS Asset Management
• Ashleigh Faith, PhD, Director, Knowledge Graph and Semantic Search at EBSCO
• Laura Garcia, President and Founder of GlobalNews Group
• Kirti Jain, PhD, Vice President and Head of Insights & Data Global Business Line, Capgemini
• Dan McCreary, Distinguished Engineer in AI, Optum
• Chun-Kit Ngan, PhD, Professor of Data Science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute
• James Pang Yan, PhD, Co-Director, Master of Science in Business Analytics at National University of Singapore
• Alexey Portnov, PhD, Research Associate at University of Texas at Austin
• Usha Rengaraju, Principal Data Scientist and Founder of NeuroAI
• Zareen Reza, AI Research Scientist at Volta Charging and Leadership Fellow at Women Who Code
• Juan Sequeda, PhD, Principal Scientist at data.world
• Yaya Sylla, President and CEO at SaH Analytics International
• Jesper Vang, PhD, PhD Researcher at Technical University of Denmark
• Ellie Young, Founder at Common Action

DQ: What is the intent behind TigerGraph launching this challenge?

Dr Yu Xu: We hope that through this initiative, people from around the globe will get excited about using graph in developing solutions and answers to crucial real-world challenges. With the following categories such as:

• Better Earth
• Better Finance
• Better Health
• Better Living

Participants will not only be able to compete for lucrative prizes but will also help to uncover potential solutions to global issues whilst developing their graph technology skillset. The world has already seen some ground-breaking applications of graph technology, such as identifying COVID infection patterns and detecting potential finance fraud. We hope that through this challenge, participants will be eager to ask themselves how they could use graph analytics to better the world that we live in.

DQ: Who would stand to benefit from this challenge? Who is the target audience?

Dr Yu Xu: Engineers, innovators, founders, academics, scientists, entrepreneurs, people with a dream – this challenge was created for everyone with a passion to develop solutions for pressing global issues at hand. From macro topics such as identifying granular concepts that link multiple United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to more micro focused topics like generating a model for individuals to track their own online information and make better decisions on who has their data and what is being done with it – participants have a whole range of challenges to take on to help make the world a better place through graph technology.

Now considered a must-have technology for modern enterprises, graph is making a difference for companies under tremendous pressures brought on by the pandemic. Over the past 18 months alone, TigerGraph’s technology empowered medical providers to make real-time care recommendations to millions of patients, fueled countless COVID-tracking initiatives, and helped businesses save hundreds of millions of dollars by improving their supply chain decisions. Through this challenge, we hope that the next ground-breaking solution through graph will help to make the world a better place.

DQ: What exactly is graph technology? How can it solve real-world problems?

Dr Yu Xu: Graph technology enables analytics on connected data. It stores both facts and relationships to drive insights using algorithms to explore the relationships among data in a graph database. Graph reveals connections among different people, transactions, and organizations, which are commonly used within cybersecurity, supply chains, social networks, and contact tracing.

TigerGraph understands the needs of enterprises and has solutions to help combat these challenges:

• TigerGraph Database is the only scalable graph database for the enterprise delivers the power of a scalable graph database and analytics to everyone -- including non-technical users.
• TigerGraph Cloud the industry’s first and only distributed graph database-as-a-service enables user to start in minutes, build in hours and deploy in days.
• GraphStudio is our simple yet powerful graphical user interface that integrates all the phases of graph data analytics into one easy-to-use application.

These solutions allow users to process and analyze massive amounts of data easily in real-time, deriving pertinent insights through the full transformative potential of graph analytics.

Graph analytics databases are the future of data storage connected with AI, with the graph itself helping users to connect nodes of information with an issue far in advance, so that users can increase their efficiency and productivity. Graph technology helps to sift through the varying data patterns to find answers and solutions to real-world issues such as critical health, climate, and business-related problems.

DQ: Apart from the cash prize. How else would winners be supported with their innovations?

Dr Yu Xu: The crux of this competition is to create an opportunity for participants to uncover a transformative solution to today’s issues. By picking a category close to their hearts, competitors will not only be using graph technology to better the world, but the cash prize reward would also help in funding their real-world applications or getting them to a place where their solutions could be implemented, be it improving cancer research, protecting marine ecosystems, or even helping combat climate change. This competition is to help participants understand the power of graph technology and the solutions offered by it. We have a huge amount of resources available including cloud resources, training videos, and access to graph experts. 

DQ: Any further comments that you would like to add?

Dr Yu Xu: The main reason for this initiative is to make the power of graph technology available to everyone. We believe that anyone can harness the power of graph analytics to uncover solutions to the world’s toughest problems. As one of the most impactful analytics technologies, graph technology is the future of analytics, which will help organizations and enterprises drive insights and solutions to their evolving challenges.

Additionally, India is one of the world’s largest internet and mobile user markets and as the region’s leading innovation hub, and a challenge like this will help citizens to reap the benefits of graph technology. As a market that still has tremendous growth potential within Asia Pacific, we believe that the time is ripe for enterprises and organizations within the country to harness the power of graph technology for the betterment of society.

TigerGraph recently launched the “Graph for All Million Dollar Challenge”, a global search for innovative ways to harness the power of graph technology and machine learning to solve real world problems. The challenge brings together brilliant minds to build innovative solutions to better our future with one question: “How will you change the world with graph?”. Dr Yu Xu, CEO, TigerGraph recently spoke to Dataquest about how the challenge aims at helping innovators who push the boundaries of graph and AI technology to uncover new, transformational ways to solve real world issues.

DQ: Could you tell us about the Graph for All Million Dollar Challenge in detail?

Dr Yu Xu: The Graph for All Million Dollar Challenge is a global search for innovative ways to harness the power of graph technology and machine learning to solve real-world problems. Through the challenge, TigerGraph aims to democratize graph by providing contestants with the freedom, tools, and resources to develop solutions that they are passionate about  using graph technology. 

Unlike other challenges, Graph for All Million Dollar Challenge is unique because participants can work on any problem - anything that they are passionate about. Defining a problem isn’t required to participate, there are more than a dozen problem statements created by domain experts that participants can select to work on.  

With over 1,100 registrations from more than 90 countries just one month after its launch, this competition showing graph is will help further put graph technology on the map, by getting developers working on initiatives such as climate change, the quality of healthcare, and protecting individuals from fraud, to use graph technology to create a profound impact on our world.

The TigerGraph Graph for All Million Dollar Challenge will be judged by a jury committee of the world’s brightest and most recognizable data scientists, professors, PhDs, distinguished engineers, and founders of global companies focusing on AI, analytics, knowledge graph, and other industry experts with deep knowledge of graph technology, graph use cases, and graph deployments. The judging committee includes eight PhDs, three academics from top universities, an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, a marine geoscientist, and a 2x Kaggle Grand Master. TigerGraph engineers and product experts will also join the panel as employee judges. Global challenge judges include:

• Dave DeCaprio, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of ClosedLoop AI
• Haris Dindo, PhD, Chief Technology Officer at SHS Asset Management
• Ashleigh Faith, PhD, Director, Knowledge Graph and Semantic Search at EBSCO
• Laura Garcia, President and Founder of GlobalNews Group
• Kirti Jain, PhD, Vice President and Head of Insights & Data Global Business Line, Capgemini
• Dan McCreary, Distinguished Engineer in AI, Optum
• Chun-Kit Ngan, PhD, Professor of Data Science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute
• James Pang Yan, PhD, Co-Director, Master of Science in Business Analytics at National University of Singapore
• Alexey Portnov, PhD, Research Associate at University of Texas at Austin
• Usha Rengaraju, Principal Data Scientist and Founder of NeuroAI
• Zareen Reza, AI Research Scientist at Volta Charging and Leadership Fellow at Women Who Code
• Juan Sequeda, PhD, Principal Scientist at data.world
• Yaya Sylla, President and CEO at SaH Analytics International
• Jesper Vang, PhD, PhD Researcher at Technical University of Denmark
• Ellie Young, Founder at Common Action

DQ: What is the intent behind TigerGraph launching this challenge?

Dr Yu Xu: We hope that through this initiative, people from around the globe will get excited about using graph in developing solutions and answers to crucial real-world challenges. With the following categories such as:

• Better Earth
• Better Finance
• Better Health
• Better Living

Participants will not only be able to compete for lucrative prizes but will also help to uncover potential solutions to global issues whilst developing their graph technology skillset. The world has already seen some ground-breaking applications of graph technology, such as identifying COVID infection patterns and detecting potential finance fraud. We hope that through this challenge, participants will be eager to ask themselves how they could use graph analytics to better the world that we live in.

DQ: Who would stand to benefit from this challenge? Who is the target audience?

Dr Yu Xu: Engineers, innovators, founders, academics, scientists, entrepreneurs, people with a dream – this challenge was created for everyone with a passion to develop solutions for pressing global issues at hand. From macro topics such as identifying granular concepts that link multiple United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to more micro focused topics like generating a model for individuals to track their own online information and make better decisions on who has their data and what is being done with it – participants have a whole range of challenges to take on to help make the world a better place through graph technology.

Now considered a must-have technology for modern enterprises, graph is making a difference for companies under tremendous pressures brought on by the pandemic. Over the past 18 months alone, TigerGraph’s technology empowered medical providers to make real-time care recommendations to millions of patients, fueled countless COVID-tracking initiatives, and helped businesses save hundreds of millions of dollars by improving their supply chain decisions. Through this challenge, we hope that the next ground-breaking solution through graph will help to make the world a better place.

DQ: What exactly is graph technology? How can it solve real-world problems?

Dr Yu Xu: Graph technology enables analytics on connected data. It stores both facts and relationships to drive insights using algorithms to explore the relationships among data in a graph database. Graph reveals connections among different people, transactions, and organizations, which are commonly used within cybersecurity, supply chains, social networks, and contact tracing.

TigerGraph understands the needs of enterprises and has solutions to help combat these challenges:

• TigerGraph Database is the only scalable graph database for the enterprise delivers the power of a scalable graph database and analytics to everyone -- including non-technical users.
• TigerGraph Cloud the industry’s first and only distributed graph database-as-a-service enables user to start in minutes, build in hours and deploy in days.
• GraphStudio is our simple yet powerful graphical user interface that integrates all the phases of graph data analytics into one easy-to-use application.

These solutions allow users to process and analyze massive amounts of data easily in real-time, deriving pertinent insights through the full transformative potential of graph analytics.

Graph analytics databases are the future of data storage connected with AI, with the graph itself helping users to connect nodes of information with an issue far in advance, so that users can increase their efficiency and productivity. Graph technology helps to sift through the varying data patterns to find answers and solutions to real-world issues such as critical health, climate, and business-related problems.

DQ: Apart from the cash prize. How else would winners be supported with their innovations?

Dr Yu Xu: The crux of this competition is to create an opportunity for participants to uncover a transformative solution to today’s issues. By picking a category close to their hearts, competitors will not only be using graph technology to better the world, but the cash prize reward would also help in funding their real-world applications or getting them to a place where their solutions could be implemented, be it improving cancer research, protecting marine ecosystems, or even helping combat climate change. This competition is to help participants understand the power of graph technology and the solutions offered by it. We have a huge amount of resources available including cloud resources, training videos, and access to graph experts. 

DQ: Any further comments that you would like to add?

Dr Yu Xu: The main reason for this initiative is to make the power of graph technology available to everyone. We believe that anyone can harness the power of graph analytics to uncover solutions to the world’s toughest problems. As one of the most impactful analytics technologies, graph technology is the future of analytics, which will help organizations and enterprises drive insights and solutions to their evolving challenges.

Additionally, India is one of the world’s largest internet and mobile user markets and as the region’s leading innovation hub, and a challenge like this will help citizens to reap the benefits of graph technology. As a market that still has tremendous growth potential within Asia Pacific, we believe that the time is ripe for enterprises and organizations within the country to harness the power of graph technology for the betterment of society.