PBS KIDS Partners with Booz Allen, Kaggle in Data Science Competition

Booz Allen Hamilton (NYSE: BAH) and Kaggle today launched the fifth annual Data Science Bowl®, a data science competition focused on social good. 

As part of the annual Data Science Bowl®, more than 50,000 participants have developed and submitted over 114,000 artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to improve everything from detection of lung cancer and heart disease, to monitoring ocean health and helping accelerate life-saving medical research 

In partnership with PBS KIDS, this year’s competition will look at advancements in early childhood education.  The 90-day Data Science Bowl competition will award winning participants with a share of $160,000 in cash prizes.  

The 2019 Data Science Bowl At-A-Glance

Why does this challenge matter? The first five years of a child’s life are critical to their development as it’s when they learn and cultivate linguistic, cognitive, social, emotional and regulatory skills that predict their later functioning in many domains. 

What will participants do? Participants will be provided with anonymous gameplay data from the PBS KIDS Measure Up! app, which was developed as a part of the CPB-PBS Ready to Learn Initiative with funding from the U.S. Department of Education. They will be tasked with creating algorithms that utilize information about how players use the app to determine what they know and are learning from the experience, in order to discover important relationships between their engagement with educational media and learning. The insights gleaned from these solutions will help PBS KIDS and other organizations create new solutions, content and products that help ensure each and every user has the best chance to learn important skills, helping improve childhood learning access and achievement.

Privacy and data security.  The PBS KIDS Measure Up! app does not collect any personally identifying information, such as name or location. All of the data used in the competition is anonymous. The Data Science Bowl and the use of data for this year’s competition has been reviewed to ensure that it meets requirements of applicable child privacy regulations by PRIVO.

To participate in the competition, register and download the data set here. To learn more about the Data Science Bowl, including more information about past Data Science Bowl competitions, visit DataScienceBowl.com