Holding contests for improving data science models is no longer news, thanks in large part to Kaggle and several of its competitors. But what is changing is the nature of how private businesses and government agencies are interacting with the growing data science community, and how these projects are being used to further their own operations. Companies as diverse as Allstate Insurance, Microsoft, GE, GM and NASA have run prominent contests with positive results.
The contests are a way to bring outside and fresh perspectives to a thorny business problem, attract attention and new talent, and also provide some excitement in some pretty nerdy areas that normally don’t get front-page headlines.