Kaggle: Analytic Olympics
Kaggle is a crowdsourcing community and a predictive-modelling platform. It’s also a data dump and job board. Together, it’s ground zero for some of the biggest analytics competitions in the world.
When a company like Walmart or Home Depot needs a data solution. First, it posts the problem to Kaggle in the form of a competition. Second, it dumps its historical datasets to the website. Then researchers, statisticians, and data miners from all around the globe submit problem-solving models. And literally anyone can join and submit their own algorithm. What’s at stake? Cash.
- Intel: Which cancer treatment will be most effective? Winner gets $100,000.
- Planet: Understanding the Amazon from Space. Winner gets $60,000.
When Facebook needs a new team member for its analytics department, job recruiting starts with an applicant’s Kaggle score.
Kaggle was founded in 2010, in San Francisco and now has over 50,000 ranked members. Both small and large companies come to Kaggle looking for solutions or simply to recruit for a short term gig or fulltime employment.
Heritage Provider Network put up $3 million for the best prediction model that identifies which patients will be admitted to a hospital in the next 365 days. A team of 7 called Powerdot won the grand prize.
The Fox School’s Data Analytics-2502 is a great introduction to R, ETL, Data Marts, and Data Visualization as all of these concepts are used by the Kaggle community. Kaggle is also great resource for any student at Temple intending to be an actuary or has interest in data science. The platform can challenge a student’s skills and push him or her to perform better with each submission. Kaggle also offers opportunities to network with potential employers and peers. Many of Kaggle’s members form groups offering a unique learning opportunity. Kaggle is the center of the analytical universe and every Temple student with interest in research and analytics should, at the very least, browse the site to see what it has to offer.