Predictive Modeling Competitions Can Solve Complex Real-World Problems

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QDm7Ypw5w4]

Kaggle is one of a number of companies attracting money in the Big Data space.  They recently secured an $11 million round of institutional funding, a significant amount for a first round of money.

Kaggle lets organizations post problems they wish to have solved to the Kaggle website and get user insight from the data by hosting a competition.  While the winners can walk away with cash prizes, even non-winners benefit from participating as they get to see other contestants’ results.  This insight can help non-winners become better data scientists in the process.

Bruno spoke with Anthony Goldbloom, CEO of Kaggle, to hear more about the company and predictive modeling competitions.  Learn how Kaggle stages these competitions in areas ranging from recommending which movies you will like on Netflix to predicting which patients are most likely to visit the hospital in the next year based on anonymous medical record statistics!

Comments

• Anonymous
  November 22, 2011
  really more free work  in the guise of a competition and we get practice out of it ? Maybe those who supplied funding    or want to use the service should pay their employees decently instead

• Anonymous
  November 23, 2011
  Or maybe the best and brightest data scientists should be rewarded for doing the most valuable work?