The WiDS Datathon 2021 has seen record-breaking participation, with 1,773 individuals on the leaderboard, 24,479 entries, and with nearly 4,000 registrants from over 85 countries around the world! Congratulations to the leaderboard winners Dihydrogen Oxide, EPFL, and .IL.
This year’s datathon participants gained hands-on experience with Intensive Care Unit (ICU) data, focusing on models to determine whether a patient admitted to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) has been diagnosed with a particular type of diabetes. WiDS ambassadors worldwide hosted over 25 datathon workshops to mentor datathon participants throughout the competition and form teams.
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 — a research paper competition with the WiDS Datathon Excellence in Research Award.
How do models perform across features such as gender, ethnicity, and age? What can we understand about biases, and how might data scientists, clinicians, and additional stakeholders mitigate issues?
“The WiDS Datathon, especially with the Excellence in Research phase of the competition, aims to facilitate community discussion around real-world data — and highlight avenues for societal impact,” notes WiDS Datathon Co-Chair Meredith Lee. “It’s incredibly motivating to see how thousands of participants, mentors, and data enthusiasts globally are connecting and sharing what they are learning.”
WiDS Datathon Co-Chair Sharada Kalanidhi adds, “It is simply wonderful to see participants grow from being novice and intermediate to working on advanced research questions at the forefront of new knowledge in this field.”
We invite you to share more details about your work with the WiDS Datathon 2021 data through a research paper of up to 3 pages.
Submissions are now open and will be accepted on Submittable until April 30, 2021.
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 individual or team will receive:
- $3,000 USD cash prize for the team
- 1 complimentary VIP registration per team member for WiDS 2022
- A WiDS Datathon Excellence in Research Award Certificate for each team member
- An invitation to be featured in a #WiDStory article
In addition to the Excellence in Research Award, up to $2,500 USD will be distributed for honorable mentions across submitted research papers.
Phase 2 winners will be recognized via WiDS and the Big Data Innovation Hubs’ social media channels. Special thanks to Kaggle for providing the cash prizes for the winners.
To be eligible for the award, all entrants must have participated in the first phase of the WiDS Datathon 2021 on Kaggle. Individuals and teams should submit their papers with the same names and contact emails used for WiDS Datathon 2021 registration.
We plan to announce the results of Phase 2 in Summer 2021, at the WiDS Ambassador Meeting, and online. Phase 2 winners will be recognized on social media channels via WiDS and the Big Data Innovation Hubs.
We look forward to your submissions!