CACR Seminar: Anthony Goldbloom, Kaggle

Anthony Goldbloom
Kaggle (http://www.kaggle.com/)

Thursday January 6, 2011
2:30 PM
100 Powell-Booth

Abstract

Machine learning and data prediction is crucial to most organizations. Banks predict which loan applicants are likely to default, treasuries forecast tax revenues and medical researchers predict the likelihood of illness from gene sequences.

Crowdsourced data mining can lead to vastly better models. My project, Kaggle, recently hosted a bioinformatics contest, which required participants to pick markers in a series of genetic sequences that predict the progression of HIV. Within a week and a half, the best submission had already outdone the best methods in the scientific literature.

This result neatly illustrates the strength of competitions. Whereas the scientific literature or in-house models tend to evolve slowly (somebody tries something, somebody else tweaks that approach and so on), a competition inspires rapid innovation by introducing the problem to a wide audience. There are an infinite number of approaches that can be applied to any machine learning problem and it is impossible to know at the outset which technique will be most effective.

Bio

Anthony is the Founder and CEO of Kaggle, a global platform for data prediction competitions. In addition to founding Kaggle, Anthony continues to consult to hosts of Kaggle competitions to help them frame prediction tasks, to get the best out of the new platform and help them integrate insights into their day-to-day operations.

Before Kaggle, Anthony was a macroeconomic modeler for the Reserve Bank of Australia and before that the Australian Treasury. In these roles, Anthony built and maintained macroeconomic models of Australia’s economy to improve forecasting and model the economic effect of changes in policy parameters, such as interest rates and fiscal policy.

Anthony graduated with first class honours in econometrics at the University of Melbourne and has published in The Economist magazine and the Australian Economic Review.