Stanford University ICME is excited to announce the WiDS Datathon, a new feature of the third Women in Data Science (WiDS) Conference taking place on March 5, 2018. The WiDS Datathon seeks to encourage female data scientists to engage in social impact solutions using a predictive analytics challenge. Participants will analyze data and build machine learning and statistical models to predict gender using a dataset from Intermedia, a grantee of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in their Financial Services for the Poor program.
The WiDS Datathon is a joint effort with InterMedia Survey Institute, as well as Stanford ICME, Intuit, Kaggle, and West Big Data Innovation Hub. The data has been collected by InterMedia to alleviate global poverty by learning how to help the world’s poorest people take advantage of widely available mobile phones and other digital technology to access financial tools and participate more fully in their local economies. InterMedia’s Financial Inclusion Insights program includes annual nationally representative surveys on financial behaviours and attitudes in eight countries in Africa and Asia.
Teams will be made up of data scientists with a minimum of 50% female members ranging in size between 1 and 4 people. Inter-organizational teams are allowed. Team members may be students, faculty, government workers and/or members of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and/or industry members. This competition seeks to encourage women data scientists to engage in social impact solutions by participating in the Datathon.
WiDS Datathon winners will be announced during the WiDS Stanford 2018 Conference.
How to Join In
Teams must register on the Kaggle site between February 1 and February 22, 2018. The WiDS Datathon challenge will close at 11:59pm on February 28, 2018. Click on the ‘Take the Challenge’ button, beginning February 1, 2018, to get started.
DataFest18 Fringe Event:
WANTED #WomenDataWarriors – Women in Data Science (WIDS) with Microsoft
Wednesday, 21 March 2018, 9:30 AM – 1:00 PM
The Data Lab & Microsoft UK are delighted to be presenting our #WomenDataWarriors fringe event in Edinburgh as part of DataFest18, in collaboration with Women in Data Science. This event is SOLD OUT but it is possible to register for the waitlist.
This event is open to everyone. Particularly, Women in Data Science, women who want to work in data science, school girls of all ages who want to hear what it is like to work with data and in data science and school teachers.
Please register for our waitlist for this popular event.
Hackathon for Kids
There will be a Hackathon for Kids in the afternoon of Wednesday 21 March. If you are a school or know of children who would like to participate in this great event please contact info@thedatalab.com for more information.