For a partnership with so much local history, the impact this group of students made provided an encouraging glimpse into the future of data analytics. Led by Ashley Clarke, W’23, the team’s business engagement lead, and French, senior technical analyst, the students identified various patronage journeys through clustering analysis. This allows The Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center, Inc. to better predict the total lifetime value for its customers and donors.

“What’s very exciting about the result of this project is that it will allow us to level up even further from the initial data project that we did with the other cultural institutions,” says Crystal Brewe, chief marketing and audience experience officer at The Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center, Inc. “It will create a modeling that we can actually implement into our CRM system that really allows us to think about the audiences in a much more nuanced and segmented way…they really wowed us with the information that came out of [this project]. The final presentation just absolutely blew me away.”

“It’s inspiring to work with [Penn] students,” says Matías Tarnopolsky, president and chief executive officer of The Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center, Inc. “This is the future of our society, and these are smart, engaged people. We’re so grateful for their time and insights.”

“They really wowed us with the information that came out of [this project]. The final presentation just absolutely blew me away.”

– Crystal Brewe, Chief Marketing and Audience Experience Officer, Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center, Inc.

Students like Cynthia Adhiambo, BSE’24, who served as the team’s junior technical analyst, benefited most from getting to handle the unmanicured and sometimes messy data that real companies work with. “Up to this point I had not worked with any real-world datasets, and I feel like most of the datasets I had worked with previously [in class] are fabricated to fit the topic that they are trying to teach,” she says. “Having done this project, I feel more confident in what I know. I’ll be doing an internship this summer on analytics. I feel more ready for the internship than before, and I can be actually able to do the analytics and give them meaningful insights despite the fact that I’ll be an intern.”

Other students, like three-time Analytics Accelerator veteran, Clarke, take advantage of the diverse benefits experiential learning programs provide. “Every single Analytics Accelerator, I learned a new skill, a new model, a new way of thinking about data,” she says. “I’m really grateful for this whole experience for not only sparking my interest in data science, but also for helping me learn so many of these techniques.”