The Oct. 17 event gives students the opportunity to showcase their skills and gain valuable experience while creating a real impact in the community.
More than 200 undergraduate and graduate students from colleges across the country are descending on the Twin Cities this month to battle food insecurity using data science. The MinneMUDAC 2026 Student Data Challenge tasks student teams with analyzing complex data sets to provide actionable insights for Minnesota hunger-relief nonprofit The Food Group.
The challenge culminates at the main event on Saturday, October 17 at St. Catherine University in St. Paul. Teams will present their findings to teams of judges made up of professionals from the community. Top teams from each division move on to the finals round.
“Participants in MinneMUDAC learn first-hand how to solve problems that do not have tidy answers,” said Chris Malone, co-founder of MUDAC. “The analytics problem posed by The Food Group is difficult and does not have a particular solution that is known.”
Real-world impact
Student participants have the potential to create real impact in the community. The Food Group tracked 9 million visits to food shelves by food-insecure Minnesotans in 2025, an all-time high.
“As hunger rises and more families struggle to keep food on the table, The Food Group is grateful to be a part of the MinneMUDAC 2026 Data Challenge,” said Sophia Lenarz-Coy, executive director of The Food Group. “Thoughtful analysis of food shelf visits will help us map the need statewide, champion policies and programs that fight hunger, and get food where it’s most needed.”
Real-world data
The competition officially kicked off on Sept. 17 with the release of the data and challenge questions. The challenge features novice, undergraduate, and graduate divisions, with increasingly complex challenges for each.
“This year’s competition pushes students to combine publicly available data to understand the difference between demand, meaning the people who show up at food shelves, and need, meaning the people who do not have enough food,” said John Hogue, MinneAnalytics board member. “No two datasets line up. Students have to decide which sources to use and defend the rationale.”
Real-world experience
Professionals from the community play a key role in the success of the competition. In addition to their role as judges, the volunteers serve as mentors, providing valuable feedback to students as they progress through the judging process. This interaction between students and professionals adds another element of value to students, and past volunteers have found the experience to be meaningful.
“There are so many paths a degree in and around data can take you on,” said Brittany Thomsen, a MinneAnalytics organizer who previously served as a judge and mentor. “Having local professionals can shine light on paths previously unknown, and gives students a perspective other than a purely academic one.”
“The real world is messy, and the job is to make sense of it anyway.”
This collaboration among students and advisors, professionals from the community, and a local nonprofit organization creates a unique opportunity for students to get out of the classroom and into the often messy world of real data analysis.
“There are no perfect answers here, only shades of good, better, and best. That is not a flaw in the challenge. It is the same work data professionals do in their day jobs,” said Hogue. “The real world is messy, and the job is to make sense of it anyway.”
MinneMUDAC 2026 is presented by MinneAnalytics in partnership with the Midwest Undergraduate Data Analytics Competition (MUDAC). Thank you to our 2026 industry partner The Food Group and event host St. Catherine University. Learn more on the event page.
