What– that is an easy one – Datathon  2020.  What is a Datathon exactly you may be wondering? Well –  The Datathon is a weekend-long online competition where you are challenged to work on a real-world business case from different areas of Machine Learning, AI, and Data Science. It’s going to be the 4^th sequential annual event since 2017.  If you want to find more about the likelihood format check out this article –   You can check all the previous ones at the following links – DataThon 2017, Datathon 2018, Datathon 2019 .

When – Soon. During the weekend of 15-17^th May 2020, counting Friday part of the weekend. Or if you prefer epoch time – 1589536801.

Where – well due to Covid-19 circumstances things are going to happen online – not to worry – we have the cyberspace covered. More on that will follow.

Who – well one will find a large palette of people in a Datathon: from enthusiasts who just need to see how far they can go to experts that want to test their latest shower theory that occurred due to the shower principle. People that have heavy background in software engineering and want to enter in Data Science and Machine Learning to no professional background unburdened people seeking to kick-start their professional network. Usually if in doubt regarding the question should I go or not – my advice is – there is only one way to find out for sure. Sign up and see what happens.

Why – so far so good but why indeed? For a start whether you seek to improve your skills, find new career opportunities, show-off or build something useful – this is an opportunity to do it. May be you may lose your weekend’s sleep but it would be worth it, trust me, been there. All the courses out there won’t put the pressure to bring your best self to the front line and to make you grow.

Three days may seem a little to meet the challenging goals….However, experience shows that magic happens.  Bringing people with different background and perspective is a surefire way to get them to look at problems in a new light. That is usually enough to find the path to target.

Another part of the journey is that Datathons are fun. They’re quasi-social opportunities to work on something important with smart, passionate people. They encourage collaboration and produce new ideas.

Beside the technical challenges – Datathons are ideal place to improve not only technical skills but also teamwork and soft-skills – something that is of high importance in today’s society. You would experience the norming, stroming and performing stages with eventual reach of the Adjourning stage.

The Datathon 2020  is just around the corner,. It’s the 4^th  international edition challenges data science rockies and experts from all around the world to team up and challenge existing data real cases. Check out more info and the cases here.