This year's challenge...
Optimize Your TechEd Lodging Experience!
Problem Statement:
Have you ever wished you knew where more people like you were staying at TechEd? Maybe you’re looking for people who have similar interests, share the same challenges, or work on the same technology that you have. Imagine “Ask the Experts” talks in your specialty at your hotel, where you could meet in a more intimate setting with both experts and peers.
You can help make this a reality! In this year’s Iron Architect competition, we are asking you to design a TechEd hotel management system that could be used in future events. Here’s how it works...
The Requirements:
We are asking you to design an architecture that allocates hotel rooms prior to registration, and then dynamically provides feedback on attendees registered at the hotel so that the TechEd staff and conference attendees can identify opportunities for networking events. The system must:
· Determine the number of rooms to reserve at all conference hotels for two nights leading up to the conference, all nights during the conference, and one night afterward.
· Determine the number of complimentary (free) rooms available by monitoring the ratio of rooms for conference attendees to complimentary rooms offered by the hotel.
· Dynamically update the registration website to show the number of attendees of each profile type staying at a hotel (without exposing PII).
· Vertical industry should be a second factor taken into account when recommending specific hotels based on role type as the IT Pro and Developer role type will reach a critical mass across several hotels
· Suggest hotels during registration based on profile type
· Determine locations for “ask the experts” events at hotels
For example, if an architect is registering for TechEd, the system will suggest that he stay at the Peabody or the Rosen Center because 45% of the conference attendees staying at the hotel are architects. A month before the event, a report is generated for the TechEd staff, which begins scheduling “Ask the Experts” events for architects at the Peabody because of the high concentration of architects there.
Assumptions:
· The system must be technically feasible using today’s technology.
· Next year’s conference is also at the Orange County Conference Center
· There are 36 hotels available.
· Each hotel offers an average comp/upgrade room ratio of 1 complimentary (free) or upgraded room per 40 paid room nights and an event the size of TechEd uses approx 40,000 room nights.
· There are 7 profile types:
o IT Professional
o Developer
o Architect
o Solutions Architect
o Non-technical Manager or Staff
o Non-technical Executive
o Other
· There are a total of 30 experts available for each profile type, so “Ask the Experts” events for each profile type can only be held in <30 hotels over the week.
· 9,500 total rooms need to be available on 3peak nights, 6,000 of rooms need to be available on 2 off-peak nights and 3,000 rooms on 2 “shoulder” nights that are outside of the off-peak nights.
· Once a hotel reaches capacity the system must determine the second best hotel option based on the profile types already booked at those hotels
