Data Crunching Competitions

I came across a list of data crunching and/or visualization competition sites today. I had heard of Kaggle & NITRD before but not the other ones. If you’re looking to get into data analytics/visualization or get better at it, the only way to do so is to practice. Using other data sets (outside your expertise field) may also help you do in-field analysis a little better (or differently).

• Kaggle — “Kaggle is an arena where you can match your data science skills against a global cadre of experts in statistics, mathematics, and machine learning. Whether you’re a world-class algorithm wizard competing for prize money or a novice looking to learn from the best, here’s your chance to jump in and geek out, for fame, fortune, or fun.”
  
  
• CrowdAnalytix — Crowdsourced predictive analytics platform
  
  
• Innocentive — “he Challenge Center is where InnoCentive connects Seekers and Solvers with a myriad of the world’s toughest Challenges. Seeker organizations post their Challenges in the Challenge Center and offer registered Solvers significant financial awards for the best solutions. Solvers can search for Challenges based on their interests and expertise.”
  
  
• TunedIT — “a platform for hosting data competitions for educational, scientific and business purposes”
  
  
• KDD Cup — “KDD Cup is the annual Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery competition organized by ACM Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, the leading professional organization of data miner”
  
  
• NITRD Big Data Challenge Series — “The Big Data Challenge is an effort by the U.S. government to conceptualize new and novel approaches to extracting value from “Big Data” information sets residing in various agency silos and delivering impactful value while remaining consistent with individual agency missions This data comes from the fields of health, energy and Earth science. Competitors will be tasked with imagining analytical techniques, and describe how they may be shared as universal, cross-agency solutions that transcend the limitations of individual agencies.”