Thanks to everyone who took part - the standard was amazing.
Don’t forget you can still apply for the internship prizes here.

See you next year!

Pitching Comp…

1st - Dirty Dataing
Nick Barrington, Jasper Little, Kirill Kokorin

2nd - Tour No.1
Daniel Ma, Jon Blank, Jeff Lai, Yun Zhou

3rd - 4 Quarters
Sylvia Rodriguez, Daniel de Sousa, John Makau, Duong Nhu

Kaggle Comp…

1st - Smileyface
Noah Xiao, Ivan Liu

2nd - Simply Analytics
Dylan Matthews, Grant McKinnon

3rd - Tour No.1
Daniel Ma, Jon Blank, Jeff Lai, Yun Zhou

7 hours to go

Please email your submissions to joost@datasciencemelbourne.com

Internships

The process for applying for the Internship positions is now set up. We have at least 6 places up for grabs, but you must be part of a team that submits a solution in order to apply. The application process will be open for a week after the pitch night. To view the jobs and apply click here.

Important notice: New Data

You should have received an email today (Wed 27th) with a download link to an updated data set. If you did not receive the email or cannot find it, let us know here.

The top 5 presentations from the 2015 datathon have now been uploaded

Grant McKinnon is setting the pace in the Kaggle comp

Only 15 tickets left for the conference

Ready to Rumble?

Slides and code snippets are on the meetup site under the menu more >> files.

See here

Registered, signed the NDA and not got the sneak peak file yet? Please tell us here.

The final schedule for the hackday is just below this section, here.

Software that might be useful to install before tomorrow:

1. R and R studio (free)
2. Python (free)
3. SQL Server Express (free)
4. Tableau Desktop (free evaluation period will last 14 days)

The number of internships on offer has increased to 6. Zendesk, SAS, KPMG, iSelect (2) and Immersive. If you want to offer one, then let us know.

The Datathon is now go!

It was standing room only at the kick-off, we had to have 2 sessions. Apologies to those who missed out on the presentation.

Joost will endevour to process all the NDAs tonight and get the sneak peak file emailed out ASAP.

Kaggle comp is now live. Sign up to Kaggle to enter. You will have to wait until Saturday when you get the full data to make a meaningful submission, but you could see if you can beat Sali Mali with a guess.

Any questions can be asked in the forum

• To learn from each other and cross pollinate skill sets
• To provide a stage for potential employers and employees to meet
• To create a buzz in Melbourne around Data Science and reverse the brain drain
• To have fun!

• Read this web page and sign up at the bottom.
• Attend the launch event on April 21st to sign the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) and get a “sneak peek” file to start your analysis. Attending the launch event is optional, but will give you an early start.
• Attend the hack day on April 23rd to get the full data-set, to form teams, to work on your analysis and to ask questions. Attending the hack day is mandatory to participate, as this will be the only day that we will be handing out the full dataset.
• Continue working with your team and submit a slide deck before 23:59, Wednesday, May 4th.
• Five top teams will be pre-selected to pitch their findings on the night of May 6th.
• Prizes will be awarded in the subsequent award ceremony
• Presentations:
  • 1st. $1,500
  • 2nd. $1,000
  • 3rd. $500
• Predictions: (Kaggle Competition)
  • 1st. $1,000
  • 2nd. $500
  • 3rd. $250
  • 4th. $150
  • 5th. $100
• Internships will also be up for grabs to entrants of the Datathon (iSelect, KPMG, Immersive)

Pictures from last year:

• Do I need to be to be a data science rock star to enter?
  No, this is all about learning and knowledge transfer. Even if you’ve never done anything like this before, please come along. We offer tutorials and mentors on hack day to get you started.

• What do I need to bring?
  You will need your laptop with your favourite tools installed. Bring lots of curiosity and energy. Don’t forget your power cord!

• Do I need to already have a team?
  No, we are expecting most people will form teams on the hack day. The organisers will be around to facilitate this with a special event. Don’t worry if you don’t know anyone; lots of people won’t.

• Can I enter as an individual?
  Yes, but the judging panel will favour teamwork. Each participant can only be part of one submission; you cannot be both on a team and an individual.

• Why do I need to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement?
  This is real data from a real ‘client.’ It is a condition of them releasing it to you that an NDA is first signed. It basically means you will not use the data for any other purpose, and that you will delete it at the end of the contest.

• What if I need help?
  There will be a handful of very experienced ‘mentors’ floating around the room on hack day. The purpose of them being there is to give ‘training’ on tools and techniques to munge the data - please use them! We will also host a selection of tutorials.

• What will be revealed about the data?
  Not much - it is your job to figure things out. On hack day, the data owners will be there to give a short presentation and answer any questions you have.

• How ‘big’ is the data?
  We don’t know yet, but we will ensure it is manageable for a laptop. It is split into several text files of bite-sized chunks.

• Are there set tasks?
  No, we provide very little initial guidance. As a true “data explorer,” you will have to come up with your own questions for the data. We want the datathon to be just like a real data science consulting task. Ask yourself what the data provider might want to learn, and how you might go about presenting that.

• How will it be judged?
  The main focus of our panel will be on the team’s ability to translate their findings into meaningful, easily understandable, actionable and valuable insights. They have a hypothetical budget to allocate and you need to convince them it’s worth spending it on your analytics.

• Is this like a Kaggle competition?
  There is a predictive component with separate prizes that will be run on Kaggle. This will run over the same time period with the winning team being revealed live at the presentation evening on the 6th May. You can enter as an individual or in a team and one member of the team must be at the presentation evening to be eligible for the prize.

• How do we communicate and stay up to date?
  To ask questions, use the forum here. We are also on social media:

Click on the links below to see the venue locations

Collective Campus - level 1, 20 Queens St

Gurrowa, Telstra, Level 2, 242 Exhibition Street, Melbourne

nab Arena - 700 Bourke St

Platform28 - 82 Village St. Docklands

Registrations are now closed.

All this would not be possible without the supporters and friends of Data Science Melbourne…

Collective Campus, KPMG, La Trobe University, Melbourne Business School, Monash University, NAB, Northraine, Pulse Data Science, RMIT, Rubix Consulting, SAS, Servian, Sportsbet, Telstra, Teradata , Zendesk, Zuse Digital

Special thanks to:

• Pulse, Seek & KPMG for the prize money
• Telstra, NAB & Collective Campus for the venues
• Zuse Digital for the web site
• Joost van der Linden, Phil Brierley, Linden Jensen-Page, Kate van der Linden, Nick Makasis & Alexia Pogiatzi for organising

The datathon is part of the Melbourne Data Science Initiative, MeDaScIn 2016

The datathon is also part of the Melbourne Knowledge Week, 2nd – 8th May 2016, proudly presented by the City of Melbourne