Dear Friends and Colleagues,
We are thrilled to announce the opening of the 13th annual AIMMS/MOPTA Optimization Modeling Competition.
The competition is organized by the conference organizers of MOPTA and AIMMS. The first phase's submission deadline is May 21, 2021, 23:59 Eastern Time. Finalists are expected to attend and present their results at the 2021 MOPTA Conference to be held on August 2-4, 2021, at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA.
This years' challenge:
The goal of the competition this year is to solve a Home Service Assignment, Routing, and Appointment Scheduling (H-SARA) problem under three key random factors: service duration, travel time, and customer cancellation.
Eligibility:
Information on eligibility, registration, submission, and competition format are posted on the competition webpage. Teams of at most three students can participate and should list a faculty advisor. The team leader must be a graduate student, though the other team members can be advanced undergraduate students. Each team member must be registered as a full-time student at a recognized educational institution during the Spring term of the 2020-2021 Academic Year. Students with any background are eligible. Collaboration between students from different departments is strongly encouraged. We ask teams to register as soon as they start working on the problem.
Each finalist team will receive free registration for the conference for up to two team members. In addition, a $600 cash prize will be awarded to the team that wins the overall competition.
As the conference is international, so is the competition. Teams from all over the world can participate, as long as at least one team member can come to the conference, should the team make it to the final round. The official language of the competition is English.
COVID-19:
We hope that as vaccines and vaccination programs are starting, next August a full MOPTA 2021 will be possible. Still, there is a real chance that having an in-person MOPTA 2021 may not be possible. MOPTA 2021 will only be held in-person if permitted by the university, state, and federal guidelines. If an in-person conference is not possible, we will consider alternatives such as a fully virtual or a hybrid version of the conference. We plan to send updates as they become available.
See also:
Thank you for your interest. Please feel free to pass along this information to potentially interested colleagues, students, and collaborators.
Best regards
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Dr. Karmel S. Shehadeh, MOPTA Competition Chair
Assistant Professor
Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering
Lehigh University
Bethlehem, PA
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