"The Fraud Busters" -- The first-place team in the FICO Analytics Challenge Competition. The winning team members -- (l-r) Emanuela Halm, senior Business Analytics major; Keon Caison, senior Accounting major; Jenia David, senior Accounting major; and Giomar Tellez, senior Accounting major -- each won $1,500 for their first-place performance. — *In this photo:* “The Fraud Busters” – The first-place team in the FICO Analytics Challenge Competition. The winning team members – (l-r) Emanuela Halm, senior Business Analytics major; Keon Caison, senior Accounting major; Jenia David, senior Accounting major; and Giomar Tellez, senior Accounting major – each won $1,500 for their first-place performance.

On Campus

Winner of the FICO Analytics Challenge announced

Thursday, December 12, 2024

A team of DSU College of Business students has developed an artificial intelligence model that can effectively predict and detect credit card fraud.

And for their efforts, they are now $6,000 richer.

The Fraud Busters—Keon Caison, Jenia David, Emanuela Halm, and Giomar Tellez—outdid two other teams to win the FICO Analytic Challenge competition, which netted each member of the winning team $1,500.

The Fraud Buster won the competition by developing a machine-learning model that analyzed transactional data and used artificial intelligence (AI) to distinguish fraudulent transactions from legitimate ones.

Through their AI model, the Fraud Busters team was able to identify high-risk transactions with notable accuracy and distinguish legitimate patterns from fraudulent ones.

Mr. Caison said he and his teammates benefited greatly from AI exercise beyond the monetary prize.

“We learned how to prompt AI, or that is, ask questions,” Mr. Caison said. “We learned a lot about fraud, and we also learned more basics of coding, which really has nothing to do with our majors, so that was a plus.”

Dr. Scott Zoldi, FICO’s Chief Analytics Officer, said his company is thrilled to partner with Delaware State University on the FICO Educational Analytics Challenge for the second consecutive year.

“The students did a tremendous job working through the financial fraud challenge and learning how to develop specialized models to detect fraud. Congratulations to the Fraud Busters for placing first, but all teams are winners and should be very proud of their work,” Dr. Zoldi said. “On behalf of FICO, it is a continued pleasure to work with the students and the next generation of data scientists.”

About FICO
FICO powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 200 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction, and growth for businesses in financial services, insurance, telecommunications, health care, retail, and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in more than 100 countries do everything from protecting 4 billion payment cards from fraud to improving financial inclusion to increasing supply chain resiliency. The FICO® Score, used by 90% of top US lenders, is the standard measure of consumer credit risk in the US and has been made available in over 40 other countries, improving risk management, credit access, and transparency.