Data scientists and geologist teamed up to find the next big one

My brilliant Singapore-based data science team mates, and I completed the Oz Minerals Explorer Challenge on 31 May 2019. Bombarded with terrabytes of data, we were tasked with finding a solution that innovates exploration targeting.

In the process of designing a solution, we crunched through HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of pages of historical reports in the course of a few weeks to get value out of unstructured data. 

It was a harrowing rush to the finishing line, with our first machine generated targets late on 30 May 2019 after many days running the computers. 

Our team concocted the artificial intelligent digital assistant who makes decision support easy for the exploration manager.

“Geological Exploration Options Genius (or G.E.O. Genius) is an integration of heterogeneous datasets into a target generation and prediction model that utilizes the power of artificial intelligence (AI). Our model predicts not only exploration targets, but also associated attributes such as total tonnage and grade through the use of deep neural networks. This is built upon the successful model validated in Data Science stream challenge and extended to incorporate extra datasets for the Mt Wood area.”

Our awesome success to deliver a solution in a very tight time frame for a machine learning project is thanks to Cher Keng Heng and David Low who cracked the prediction of finding known Australian deposits in the earlier data science challenge with their deep learning algorithms.

I believe our team also made a scientific discovery in the process of modelling the basement to project drilling depths when datasets were stacked on final analysis.

The final video pitch saw me looking just like the bleary-eyed, grinning monkey on my old university diary’s cover, after many sleepless nights modelling. In the end, I turned the video off and opted for audio.

Without waiting for the announcement of winners on 28 June 2019, I feel the four of us are already winners on the journey to innovate exploration targeting. Who would have thought that our similar appearance with eye glasses and lanyards would bring such diversity and cultural heritage to a Singapore-Australia alliance that delivers.

I would like to publicly acknowledge the follow groups of people, in no particular order:

Team Mates: Cher Keng Heng, David Low, Dr Yiliang Zhao, a team whose phenomenal brilliance is second to none, and I had the greatest pleasure to be selected as their geologist, and given the privilege to pitch our findings of 3 months of hard work.

Opponent teams: Whose incredible resilience to the end inspired us to keep crunching, without whom there will be no competition.

 Competition Organiser: Unearthed Solutions, Oz Minerals

Sponsors: Oz Minerals, Esri Australia for ArcGIS licence, AWS for server services, South Australian Department for Energy and Mining

Judging panel: Andrew Cole (CEO, OZ Mineral), Mika McKinnon (Science Communicator & Geophysicist), Dr Steve Hill (Chief Geoscientist, Geoscience Australia), Zane Prickett (Director, Unearthed Solutions)

Team advisor: Exploration manager, Dr W who wishes to remain anonymous. With his guidance, we looked at the overall picture of innovating discoveries with new orebody knowledge

Advisors and mentors drawn from a team of Perth’s retired and semi-retired geoscientists

Advisors and mentors from CERI (https://www.ceri.org.au), for training in innovation, and speaking .

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