Home > data science, news > Calling all data scientists! The first ever global data science hackathon

Calling all data scientists! The first ever global data science hackathon

April 11, 2012

Hey I’m helping organize a NYC data hackathon at Bloomberg Ventures to take place April 28th – 29th, from 8am Saturday to 8am Sunday. I’m looking for outrageously nerdy people to come help. There will be some prizes.

Read the official blurb below carefully and if you’re in, sign up for the event by registering here.

Update: they’ve decided on prizes.

See you there!

——————————————————————————————————————————————–

Are you a smart data scientist? Participate in this hackful event. 24 hours of non-stop, fun data science competition. The first ever global, simultaneous data science hackathon!

In connection with Big Data Week, we’re helping organize a global data science hackathon that will simultaneously take place in various locations around the world (including London, Sydney, and San Francisco). We will host the NYC event at the Bloomberg Ventures office in the West Village.

The aim of the hackathon is to promote data science and show the world what is possible today combining data science with open source, Hadoop, machine learning, and data mining tools.

Data scientists, data geeks, and hackers will self organize around teams of 3-5 members. Contestants will be presented with a ‘big data’ set (hosted on the Kaggle platform). In order to win prizes, the teams will have to use data science tools and develop an analytical model that will solve a specific data science problem specified by the judging tech panel. The contestants will have to report their achievements at specific milestones, and a leader board will be published online at each milestone.

The contestants will spend 24 hours in Bloomberg Ventures’ office space where food, drinks, workspaces, and resting areas will be provided. Teams will compete for both local and global titles and prizes.

The Hackathon runs for 24 hours starting on April 28th at 8am (early start to allow for the event to happen simultaneously in multiple time zones around the world).

If you have questions, please email shivon.zilis@bloombergventures.com

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY:

1.  This is a technical competition, not a networking event or an opportunity to learn more about big data techniques and technologies.  We have limited space, so we unfortunately need to be strict about who gets to compete.  If you’re an entrepreneur looking to recruit, we’re excited to have you as a member of this community, but this specific event is not the right venue, please come our regular Data Business meetups instead! 🙂

2. You should have Mad Skillz at at least one of the following:

  1. Data grappling and/or cleaning,
  2. Data modeling and forecasting,
  3. Data visualization,
  4. Spontaneous micro- and macro-economic theory creation

3. You should know one or more of the following languages:

  1. R
  2. python
  3. Matlab
  4. Some statistical package like SPSS or SAS

4. You should bring your hardcore laptop to the event, since we will have on the order of 10 gigs of data to play with.

Categories: data science, news
  1. aaronschumacher's avatar
    aaronschumacher
    April 11, 2012 at 10:44 am

    Neat! I didn’t know you were organizing! I signed up and was planning to join a team – I can do a bit with Python and R, but I’m not really an expert – are you helping coordinate teams, or looking for volunteers of some sort for running the event, or?

    Like

    • April 11, 2012 at 11:03 am

      I’m helping organize and helping coordinate teams. I’m looking for “wranglers” who are also willing to help answer questions during the event, as well as to help update a wiki for the event during the day (and someone to start the wiki too…).

      Know anyone? 🙂

      Cathy

      Like

      • Aaron Schumacher's avatar
        aaronschumacher
        April 11, 2012 at 11:06 am

        I’d be happy to help in any of those capacities! Let me know what I can do. For the wiki, are you thinking of just using some free wiki host, or something more involved? Anyway, count me in!

        Like

  2. April 11, 2012 at 3:27 pm

    Is there a signup sheet for coordinating teams? I already have two other people, and I would like to find two more people for a total of 5.

    Like

  3. April 12, 2012 at 10:53 pm

    hey Cathy.
    I have been following your blog for a while now and have really enjoyed reading it. 🙂
    I was wondering if you have any suggestions about a good book for learning about bayesian data analysis.
    A little bit about my background. I am finishing up my PhD in applied math at Georgia tech, but unfortunately I never got a chance to learn about data analysis formally. Now that I am leaving the protective cocoon of academia I think it would a good idea to learn more useful things beyond proving theorems !! :). That said I would consider myself comfortable with probability so I am looking for an intermediate text. Given your background I guess you are the best person to ask for advice on this.

    Thanks,
    Pushkar Tripathi

    Like

  4. April 13, 2012 at 8:44 pm

    We just announced the prizes http://datasciencehackathon.com/prizes/

    Like

  5. April 13, 2012 at 8:53 pm

    Hey Mathbabe, We’d greatly appreciate if you could mentionn Data Science London http://datasciencelondon.org/ as the original creator of this hackathon and link to our website.

    In fact most of the text in this post is the original content from our website http://datasciencehackathon.com/

    Thanks for recognising our communtity

    Like

  1. No trackbacks yet.
Comments are closed.