The WiDS Datathon 2020 currently has 678 teams from approximately 85 countries analyzing 130,000 hospital patient health records — and it’s not too late to join online! WiDS ambassadors and community partners have led more than 25 datathon-focused workshops over the last month, and continue to produce tutorials and resources.
To help encourage deeper exploration and the development of collaborative data science innovations, WiDS Datathon Committee and the National Science Foundation Big Data Innovation Hubs are hosting a second phase of the WiDS Datathon this year — with a new WiDS Datathon Excellence in Research Award.
This year’s datathon participants are gaining hands-on experience with Intensive Care Unit (ICU) data, testing their predictive models and discussing their approaches through the Kaggle forum around the clock.
How do their predictive models perform across features such as gender, ethnicity, and age? What are the implications of missing values in hospital records? How can machine learning ultimately impact patient survival?
“The datathon highlights a number of open research questions,” notes West Big Data Innovation Hub Executive Director and WiDS Datathon Lead Meredith Lee. “Our new award from WiDS and the Big Data Innovation Hubs emphasizes the significance of assumptions, and aims to spark community dialogue about responsible data science.”
We invite you to share more details about your work with the WiDS Datathon 2020 data through a one-page research paper.
UPDATE March 14, 2020: In light of COVID-19, participants may continue to submit research papers through April 30, 2020, 11:59pm PT. You can submit your paper here.
If you are not yet competing in the WiDS Datathon, take the challenge today (this is a requirement to participate in the award). The deadline for submitting an entry on Kaggle is February 24, 2020.
Submissions will be reviewed by subject matter experts from the WiDS Datathon Committee, the National Science Foundation Big Data Innovation Hubs, and the MIT GOSSIS community. Papers will be evaluated on their potential for real-world impact, rigor in scientific methodology, and clarity of communication.
Papers will also be eligible to be published on the WiDS Datathon website.
Research papers should address questions including but not limited to:
- What assumptions did you make in preparing your models and analyzing the data?
- What are the potential implications of your assumptions?
- What are your main insights and contributions?
- What are some of your ‘lessons learned’ and meaningful or surprising results?
- What unanswered questions do you have about the data, your analysis, and the analysis from the research community?
- How might you and others address these unanswered questions and/or advance related research?
- Are there open problems in mathematics, statistics, computer science, applied medical research or related fields that could benefit from deeper exploration of this data set?
Submissions should also include an abstract (4–5 sentence summary) and a list of references (e.g., cited research papers, books, tutorials, or other resources used).
The award winner(s) will receive:
- Up to 4 VIP tickets (1 per team member) for WiDS Stanford 2021 or complimentary registrations for the Stanford ICME Summer Data Science workshops held Aug 17–22, 2020
- Up to $2000 USD per team in domestic airfare to travel to WiDS Stanford 2021, the Summer Data Science workshops, or an equivalent professional development opportunity
- Special invitation to participate in the MIT GOSSIS Datathon in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 2020
- A WiDS Datathon Excellence in Research Award Certificate
The award will be announced in May 2020 online and at the first-ever All Hubs Summit with the four Regional Big Data Innovation Hubs and the National Science Foundation.
We look forward to your submissions!