Kaggle has been running data competitions, which are open to all, for about three years now. In that time, it has become a place for a global community of over 100,000 aspiring and established data scientists to showcase their skills and for companies to hire them. Kaggle’s Chief Scientist, Jeremy Howard, was himself a top ranking competitor before he joined the company. He sat down with FastCo.Labs to discuss a phenomenon he has noticed: Many of Kaggle’s best competitors are self-taught.
First, some background. A Kaggle competition works like this: Companies pose a challenge--for example the Heritage Health Prize aimed to improve predictions of which patients were most likely to require a visit to hospital in the next year--and competitors vie to build the best predictive model. Prizes range up to $3 million and winners also earn a place on Kaggle’s leaderboard.
What do all the people on the leaderboard have in common? It’s not an Ivy League education or a PhD in Statistics. According to Howard, it’s creativity--and Coursera.
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