Participants will have the opportunity to work on a realistic and very challenging problem with large, real-world data sets provided by Amazon that are currently not publicly available to the research community. The problem tackled in the Last Mile Routing Research Challenge is applicable to any company and industry which has last-mile operations.
Prizes
The winning team will receive an award of US$100,000. The team with second highest score will receive an award of US$50,000, and the team with the third highest score will receive an award of US$25,000. All awards will be divided equally among all team members.
Recognition
All participants will receive a certificate of participation in the Last Mile Routing Research Challenge signed by the Amazon Logistics VP and the Director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics.
Career Development
In addition, the top 3 teams may be invited to interview with Amazon for research positions in the last mile organization and may be invited to present their work to students and faculty members at MIT.
Publications
All participants in the Last Mile Routing Research Challenge will be invited to submit an extended academic paper on their work for potential publication in a peer-reviewed proceedings document, and if possible, a special issue of an appropriate academic journal.
The most academically compelling submissions to the Last Mile Routing Research Challenge will be featured in a scientific review paper that MIT CTL intends to publish in order to raise the awareness of the academic community to the topic and to the contributions proposed by the participants in the challenge.
Similarly, the most promising solutions to the Last Mile Routing Research Challenge will be featured on a more applied level in a special report on state-of-the-art route sequencing methods, which will be targeting practitioners and will be published online by MIT CTL.
Lastly, MIT CTL will pick out individual contributions by interested participants in the Last Mile Routing Research Challenge and feature their work in practitioner-oriented media outlets, social media, or blog posts, targeting a broad public audience.