Datathon

Due to limited applications we have had to cancel the Datathon. Apologies to those who submitted entries and we shall try to run the Datathon again in two years’ time.  Beyond the sheer competition, the main purpose of the Datathon is to provide a common space for practical discussion and challenges around the applicability of open data and its value to society, business and science. Of course this idea still holds. Please stick with us at the conference for interesting and lively discussion on these topics!

Free and premium open data and APIs – an opportunity to explore the best of both worlds

Join from anywhere in the world!

 

In recent years data has become the new oil. Indeed, just like oil, it needs to be discovered, extracted from its sources and refined from the raw material into products with a high added value. Following the analogy, this is rarely an easy task and consequently more and more sophisticated methods and machinery have been developed that allow for cost-efficient means that assist the whole data lifecycle. As a consequence a large amount of actionable datasets is now available for exploitation in data-intensive applications and domains, following different business models. This is especially the case of structured data accessible in the Web both through dedicated APIs or freely available in the form of (Linked) Open Data. However, though important steps have been taken in this direction, there seems to be still a gap between the potential social and economic benefits of the use of large-scale data in applications and the current level of adoption.

This scenario has inspired the K-CAP 2013 Datathon, whose main objective is to demonstrate the value of Open Data through innovative applications. Additional objectives include to identify possible pitfalls along the value chain of the data, and second, to draw a number of conclusions that allow the communities involved in generating and exploiting large-scale data, to deal with such difficulties and flatten the ground for data-intensive applications in the near future.

 

The Challenge

We invite researchers, developers and practitioners to join us in the Datathon and turn this vision into a reality. We are calling for teams with a maximum of four members to develop the best data-intensive applications that the current technologies and members’ skills permit in a challenging setting and with a limited amount of time.

We expect highly innovative data-intensive applications, this is the most important thing! So, you are free to decide the topic and domain. However, we recommend applications that cover one or several of the following categories:

  • Social responsibility applications for solving problems in societies and the world.
  • Business applications around a business idea to improve economic competitiveness.
  •  Surprising applications, bringing fresh air and inspiration to the K-CAP 2013 audience.

 

The Resources

Though you are free to use any kind of open data or resource for your application#, provided it is available online, this datathon is powered by several market places, APIs and analytics tools to speed up the process to value. This way you can minimize the time spent on data discovery, cleansing, and structuring and concentrate on your application while having access to high quality data.

  • Data Markets/Sources:
    • datamarket.com/
    • factual.com/
    • datamarket.azure.com/browse/data
    • www.infochimps.com/marketplace
    • www.qunb.com/
    • http://www.quandl.com/
  • Companies Sharing their data:
    • bbyopen.com/
    • ebayodata.cloudapp.net/docs
    • www.lendingclub.com/info/download-data.action
    • www.prosper.com/tools/DataExport.aspx
    • www.yelp.com/academic_datase
  • APIs:
    • Prediction: https://bigml.com/developers
    • Prediction: https://developers.google.com/prediction/
    • Open Data: http://www.junar.com
  • Text APIs:
    • http://www.alchemyapi.com/
    • http://www.uclassify.com/
    • http://www.bitext.com/bitext-api-2.html
    • http://kbsportal.com/docs

Several companies mentioned in the table are sponsoring the datathon by providing free access to their paid resources for the duration of the Datathon.

Keep your applications open and modular! At the Datathon, we will reveal a new requirement. Participant teams who manage to achieve this new requirement and extend their application with it will receive five extra points. This may well mean the difference between winning the challenge or staying anonymous!

 

Final Day of the Datathon

The Datathon will end with a one-day workshop held in collocation with K-CAP 2013 in Banff (Alberta, Canada), where participant teams will have the opportunity to finalize their applications. The companies and organizations offering data and/or API resources will be non-stop available during that day through video conferencing tools for questions and support. All teams will have the opportunity to demo their applications live at a session of the K-CAP 2013 conference.

 

Awards

The best application of the Datathon will be awarded with $2000.

Once the workshop is over, an online voting system will be available until the final day of of K-CAP 2013 for anyone willing to vote for the best Datathon application. To this purpose, all applications will need to be online. Moreover, all K-CAP participants will also vote your presentation at the demo session.

We will choose the winner combining the online votes obtained by your applications, the votes obtained during K-CAP, and the points you earned during the Datathon through the additional requirements.

The award will be handed out Prof Nigel Shadbolt (co-founder, together with Sir Tim Berners-Lee) of the recently created Open Data Institute (http://www.theodi.org/)

 

Registration

Although we want to see as many of you as possible in Banff, we are aware this is not always possible. The team members who cannot make it to Banff will still be allowed to work with their teams remotely during the workshop.

Fill in the submission form at https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=kcap2013datathon and send us a 1 page document with the following information:

  • Name and abstract of your application idea (200 words maximum).

  • Main category it belongs to (social responsibility, business, or surprising).

  • Team members (Name, Last Name, email address, institution)

  • Datasets

 

Important dates

Registration deadline – May 23rd

Datathon starts – May 24th

Datathon workshop at K-CAP – June 23rd.

Applications available on the Web for everybody to vote – June 23rd (upon workshop finishes)

Online voting system available from June 24th and 25th

Demo session at KCAP where applications are showcased and attendees vote – June 24 or 25th

Winners are announced – June 25 or 26th