Data science competitions with social impact

With our amazing community and partners like NASA, Microsoft, Meta AI, and The World Bank, our competitions have provided $4,686,000+ in prizes, drawn 215,000 submissions, and advanced solutions in climate change, health, education and more.


Prize competitions

science

Pose Bowl: Spacecraft Detection and Pose Estimation Challenge

Develop object detection and pose estimation algorithms for use on inspector spacecraft. #science

569 joined
$40,000 in prizes
6 weeks left
1 month, 2 weeks left
$40,000
climate

Water Supply Forecast Rodeo

Water managers in the Western U.S. rely on accurate water supply forecasts to better operate facilities and mitigate drought. Help the Bureau of Reclamation improve seasonal water supply estimates in this probabilistic forecasting challenge! #climate

559 joined
$500,000 in prizes
4 months left
4 months left
$500,000

Practice competitions

health

Flu Shot Learning: Predict H1N1 and Seasonal Flu Vaccines

Can you predict whether people got H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccines using information they shared about their backgrounds, opinions, and health behaviors? #health

6,313 joined
beginner practice
4 months left
4 months left
disasters

Richter's Predictor: Modeling Earthquake Damage

Can you predict the level of damage to buildings caused by the 2015 Gorkha earthquake in Nepal based on aspects of building location and construction? #disasters

7,377 joined
intermediate practice
6 months left
6 months, 1 week left
health

DengAI: Predicting Disease Spread

Using environmental data collected by U.S. Federal Government agencies, can you predict the number of dengue fever cases reported each week in San Juan, Puerto Rico and Iquitos, Peru? #health

14,560 joined
intermediate practice
6 months left
6 months, 1 week left
development

Pump it Up: Data Mining the Water Table

Can you predict which water pumps are faulty to promote access to clean, potable water across Tanzania? This is an intermediate-level practice competition. #development

16,513 joined
intermediate practice
6 months left
6 months, 1 week left
climate

Conser-vision Practice Area: Image Classification

Looking for a great way to start working with computer vision? This competition features a small dataset of wildlife captured by camera traps used in conservation research. #climate

836 joined
advanced practice
6 months left
6 months, 1 week left

Completed competitions

health

SNOMED CT Entity Linking Challenge

Link spans of text in clinical notes to concepts in the SNOMED CT clinical terminology. #health

553 joined
$25,000 in prizes
mar 2024
competition has ended
$25,000
climate

Kelp Wanted: Segmenting Kelp Forests

Help researchers estimate the extent of Giant Kelp Forests by segmenting Landsat imagery. #climate

671 joined
$15,000 in prizes
feb 2024
competition has ended
$15,000
health

PREPARE: Pioneering Research for Early Prediction of Alzheimer's and Related Dementias EUREKA Challenge

Help the NIH discover novel approaches for the early prediction of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. #health

376 joined
$650,000 in prizes
jan 2024
competition has ended
$650,000
Competition

Pale Blue Dot: Visualization Challenge

Use public Earth observation data to create a visualization that furthers the Sustainable Development Goals of zero hunger, clean water and sanitation, or climate action.

1,591 joined
Space Study program
jan 2024
competition has ended
society

Meta AI Video Similarity Challenge

Help keep social media safe by identifying whether a video contains a manipulated clip from one or more videos in a reference set. #society

444 joined
$100,000 in prizes
dec 2023
competition has ended
$100,000
health

Unsupervised Wisdom: Explore Medical Narratives on Older Adult Falls

Use unsupervised machine learning approaches to extract insights from emergency department narratives about how, when, and why older adults (age 65+) fall. #health

659 joined
$70,000 in prizes
oct 2023
competition has ended
$70,000
science

Research Rovers: AI Research Assistants for NASA

Help NASA assess emerging capabilities for AI-based research assistants. #science

293 joined
$30,000 in prizes
oct 2023
competition has ended
$30,000
civic

Pushback to the Future: Predict Pushback Time at US Airports

Accurate estimates of pushback time can help air traffic management systems more efficiently use the limited capacity of airports, runways and the National Airspace System. Use air traffic and weather data to automatically predict pushback time! #civic

416 joined
$50,000 in prizes
jul 2023
competition has ended
$50,000
health

VisioMel Challenge: Predicting Melanoma Relapse

Use digitized microscopic slides to predict the likelihood of melanoma relapse within the next five years. #health

541 joined
€25,000 in prizes
may 2023
competition has ended
€25,000
privacy

U.S. PETs Prize Challenge

Help unlock the potential of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) to combat global societal challenges. Develop efficient, accurate, and extensible federated learning solutions with strong privacy guarantees for individuals in the data. #privacy

676 joined
$675,000 in prizes
mar 2023
competition has ended
$675,000
privacy

U.K. PETs Prize Challenge

Help unlock the potential of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) to combat global societal challenges. Develop efficient, accurate, and extensible federated learning solutions with strong privacy guarantees for individuals in the data. #privacy

71 joined
£585,000 in prizes
mar 2023
competition has ended
£585,000
climate

Tick Tick Bloom: Harmful Algal Bloom Detection Challenge

Harmful algal blooms occur all around the world, and can harm people, their pets, and marine life. Use satellite imagery to detect dangerous concentrations of cyanobacteria, and help protect public health! #climate

1,377 joined
$30,000 in prizes
feb 2023
competition has ended
$30,000
climate

The BioMassters

Help conservationists make use of satellite imagery to estimate the aboveground biomass of Finnish forests. #climate

976 joined
$10,000 in prizes
jan 2023
competition has ended
$10,000
science

Mars Spectrometry 2: Gas Chromatography

Help NASA scientists identify the chemical composition of rock and soil samples for Mars planetary science. #science

537 joined
$30,000 in prizes
oct 2022
competition has ended
$30,000
climate

Snowcast Showdown

Seasonal snowpack is a critical water resource throughout the Western U.S. Help the Bureau of Reclamation estimate snow water equivalent (SWE) at a high spatiotemporal resolution using near real-time data sources. #climate

1,247 joined
$500,000 in prizes
jul 2022
competition has ended
$500,000
climate

Where's Whale-do?

Help the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), NOAA Fisheries, and Wild Me accurately identify endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales from photographic imagery. Scalable photo-identification of individuals is critical to population assessment, management, and protection for these endangered whales. #climate

442 joined
$35,000 in prizes
jun 2022
competition has ended
$35,000
society

Facebook AI Image Similarity Challenge

Advance the science of image similarity detection, with applications in areas including content tracing, copyright infringement and misinformation. #society

1,347 joined
$200,000 in prizes
jun 2022
competition has ended
$200,000
civic

Run-way Functions: Predict Reconfigurations at US Airports

Air traffic managers monitor the skies and respond by changing the airport configuration. Tools that give flight operators early warning for upcoming changes can help streamline air travel and reduce delays. Use real-time data to predict future airport configurations. #civic

381 joined
$40,000 in prizes
apr 2022
competition has ended
$40,000
science

Mars Spectrometry: Detect Evidence for Past Habitability

Help NASA scientists identify the chemical composition of rock and soil samples for Mars planetary science. #science

713 joined
$30,000 in prizes
apr 2022
competition has ended
$30,000
climate

NASA Airathon: Predict Air Quality

Air pollution is one of the greatest environmental threats to human health. Help NASA deliver accurate, high-resolution air quality information to improve public health and safety! #climate

1,038 joined
$50,000 in prizes
mar 2022
competition has ended
$50,000
science

On Cloud N: Cloud Cover Detection Challenge

Clouds obscure important ground-level features in satellite images, complicating their use in downstream applications. Build algorithms for cloud cover detection using a new cloud dataset and Microsoft's Planetary Computer! #science

847 joined
$20,000 in prizes
feb 2022
competition has ended
$20,000
climate

Deep Chimpact: Depth Estimation for Wildlife Conservation

Help conservationists monitor wildlife populations. In this challenge, you will estimate the depth of animals in camera trap videos. Better distance estimation models can rapidly accelerate the availability of critical information for wildlife monitoring and conservation. #climate

313 joined
$10,000 in prizes
nov 2021
competition has ended
$10,000
disasters

STAC Overflow: Map Floodwater from Radar Imagery

Help Microsoft AI for Earth and Cloud to Street detect floodwater through cloud coverage using Sentinel-1 synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) imagery. Accurate flood mapping can save lives by strengthening early warning systems and directing emergency relief. #disasters

655 joined
$20,000 in prizes
sep 2021
competition has ended
$20,000
science

Overhead Geopose Challenge

Help make overhead imagery more useful for time-sensitive applications like disaster response. Build computer vision algorithms that can effectively model the height and pose of ground objects for monocular satellite images taken from oblique angles. #science

437 joined
$50,000 in prizes
jul 2021
competition has ended
$50,000
privacy

Differential Privacy Temporal Map Challenge

Help public safety agencies share data while protecting privacy. This is a series of contests to develop algorithms that preserve the usefulness of temporal map data while guaranteeing individual privacy is protected. #privacy

280 joined
$147,000 in prizes
jun 2021
competition has ended
$147,000
society

Hateful Memes

Detecting hateful content presents a unique challenge in memes, where multiple data modalities need to be analyzed together. Facebook is calling on researchers around the world to help identify which memes contain hate speech. #society

3,980 joined
$100,000 in prizes
apr 2021
competition has ended
$100,000
science

MagNet: Model the Geomagnetic Field

Help NOAA better forecast changes in Earth’s magnetic field! Improved models can provide more advanced warning of geomagnetic storms and reduce errors in magnetic navigation systems. #science

616 joined
$30,000 in prizes
feb 2021
competition has ended
$30,000
disasters

Wind-dependent Variables: Predict Wind Speeds of Tropical Storms

Throughout a tropical cyclone, humanitarian response efforts hinge on accurate storm intensity estimates. Using satellite images assembled by Radiant Earth Foundation and the NASA IMPACT team, can you estimate the wind speeds of storms at different times? #disasters

727 joined
$13,000 in prizes
feb 2021
competition has ended
$13,000
health

TissueNet: Detect Lesions in Cervical Biopsies

The objective of this challenge is to detect the most severe epithelial lesions of the uterine cervix. The challenge brings together thousands of microscopic slides from different medical centers across France. #health

539 joined
€25,000 in prizes
oct 2020
competition has ended
€25,000
science

Genetic Engineering Attribution Challenge

Genetic engineering is a powerful tool that demands responsible use. Your goal is to create an algorithm that identifies the lab-of-origin for genetically engineered DNA with the highest accuracy level possible. #science

1,205 joined
$60,000 in prizes
oct 2020
competition has ended
$60,000
health

Clog Loss: Advance Alzheimer’s Research with Stall Catchers

Help accelerate Alzheimer's research by automatically classifying which blood vessels are flowing and which are stalled. #health

915 joined
$10,000 in prizes
aug 2020
competition has ended
$10,000
disasters

Open Cities AI Challenge: Segmenting Buildings for Disaster Resilience

Can you map building footprints from drone imagery? This semantic segmentation challenge leverages computer vision and data from OpenStreetMap to support disaster risk management efforts in cities across Africa. #disasters

1,099 joined
$15,000 in prizes
mar 2020
competition has ended
$15,000
climate

Hakuna Ma-data: Identify Wildlife on the Serengeti with AI for Earth

Can you predict which animals are present in camera trap images? Leverage millions of images of animals on the Serengeti to build a classifier that distinguishes between gazelles, lions, and more! #climate

806 joined
$20,000 in prizes
jan 2020
competition has ended
$20,000
disasters

Open AI Caribbean Challenge: Mapping Disaster Risk from Aerial Imagery

Can you predict the roof material of buildings from drone imagery? Leverage aerial imagery in St. Lucia, Guatemala, and Colombia to more accurately map disaster risk at scale. #disasters

1,419 joined
$10,000 in prizes
dec 2019
competition has ended
$10,000
energy

Sustainable Industry: Rinse Over Run

Help make industrial cleaning processes more efficient! The goal of this competition is to predict measures of cleanliness during final rinse in order to help minimize the use of water, energy and time, all while ensuring high cleaning standards. #energy

1,213 joined
€20,000 in prizes
mar 2019
competition has ended
€20,000
energy

Power Laws: Cold Start Energy Forecasting

Usually with buildings, bigger historic datasets yield more accurate consumption forecasts. The goal of this challenge is to provide an accurate forecast from the very beginning of the building instrumentation life, without much consumption history. #energy

1,289 joined
€23,000 in prizes
oct 2018
competition has ended
€23,000
energy

Power Laws: Optimizing Demand-side Strategies

Storage is critical to flexible and reliable access to renewable energy sources. In this challenge, competitors combined traditional optimization methods and machine learning to build algorithms for controlling a battery charging system as efficiently as possible. #energy

354 joined
€23,000 in prizes
mar 2018
competition has ended
€23,000
energy

Power Laws: Detecting Anomalies in Usage

Commercial buildings waste an estimated 15% to 30% of energy used due to poorly maintained, degraded, and improperly controlled equipment. Competitors built quick-response algorithms to find anomalies in energy use and elevate them for human attention and intervention. #energy

649 joined
€26,000 in prizes
mar 2018
competition has ended
€26,000
energy

Power Laws: Forecasting Energy Consumption

More accurate forecasts of building energy consumption mean better planning and more efficient energy use. In this challenge, competitors used machine learning to build the most accurate predictions of the future from limited data in the past. #energy

1,032 joined
€23,000 in prizes
mar 2018
competition has ended
€23,000
development

Pover-T Tests: Predicting Poverty

Measuring poverty is hard. Thanks to the efforts of thousands of competitors, The World Bank can now build on open source machine learning tools to help predict poverty, optimize uses of survey data, and support work to end extreme poverty … #development

2,307 joined
$15,000 in prizes
feb 2018
competition has ended
$15,000
climate

Pri-matrix Factorization

Data scientists from more than 90 countries around the world drew on 300,000 video clips in a competition to build the best machine learning models for identifying wildlife from camera trap footage. The results are powerful and – equally important … #climate

320 joined
€20,000 in prizes
dec 2017
competition has ended
€20,000
climate

N+1 fish, N+2 fish

Sustainable fishing means tracking every fish caught. New tools using automated video processing and artificial intelligence can help responsible fisheries comply with regulations, save time, and lower the safety risk and cost from an auditor on board. #climate

461 joined
$50,000 in prizes
oct 2017
competition has ended
$50,000
climate

Random Walk of the Penguins

Competitors built hundreds of algorithms to predict changes in Antarctic penguin populations from the most comprehensive counts available. These algorithms give researchers a greater understanding of penguin population dynamics, a leading indicator of climate change. #climate

603 joined
$16,000 in prizes
jun 2017
competition has ended
$16,000
civic

America's Next Top (Statistical) Model

US presidential elections come but once every 4 years, and this one's a big one. There are lots of people trying to predict what will happen. Can you top them? #civic

150 joined
$1,000 in prizes
nov 2016
competition has ended
$1,000
health

Senior Data Science: Safe Aging with SPHERE

Contribute to open, cutting-edge research on the use of wearables in promoting health and independence for seniors. #health

577 joined
$10,000 in prizes
jul 2016
competition has ended
$10,000
development

From Fog Nets to Neural Nets

Model the water output from water-collecting fog nets in Southwest Morocco. Accurate predictions can improve collection efforts and enable greater access to fresh water throughout the year. #development

543 joined
$15,000 in prizes
may 2016
competition has ended
$15,000
science

Naive Bees Classifier

Can you identify a bee as a honey bee or a bumble bee? Practice image processing and classification techniques and help researchers seeking to protect pollinators from collapse. #science

431 joined
$5,000 in prizes
dec 2015
competition has ended
$5,000
civic

Keeping it Fresh: Predict Restaurant Inspections

Flag public health risks at restaurants by combining Yelp reviews with open city data on past inspections. An algorithmic approach discovers more violations with the same number of inspections. #civic

604 joined
$5,000 in prizes
aug 2015
competition has ended
$5,000
health

Countable Care: Modeling Women's Health Care Decisions

Can you predict what drives women’s health care decisions in America? In an uncertain health landscape, this survey modeling challenge can help illuminate what care people receive, where they go, and how they pay. #health

489 joined
$5,000 in prizes
apr 2015
competition has ended
$5,000
education

Box-Plots for Education

Tag school budgets automatically to help districts get a better grasp of their spending and how to improve the impact of their scarce resources. #education

294 joined
$7,500 in prizes
jan 2015
competition has ended
$7,500
Competition

Preview: The Future of DrivenData Competitions

Learn more about exciting upcoming changes to DrivenData's data science competitions.

63 joined
advanced practice
apr 2023
competition has ended
education

Reboot: Box-Plots for Education

We're rebooting our first prized competition for fun and education! Tag school budgets automatically to help districts get a better grasp of their spending and how to improve the impact of their scarce resources. #education

2,591 joined
intermediate practice
dec 2022
competition has ended
Competition

Pawsitive Predictive Value: Pets and Productivity

Understanding the pet–productivity connection for workers is critical to sustained long-term economic growth. Can you predict DrivenData team members' productivity based on their proximity to their pets?

94 joined
advanced practice
apr 2022
competition has ended
development

United Nations Millennium Development Goals

The UN's Millennium Development Goals provide the big-picture perspective on international development. Using indicators aggregated and collected by the World Bank, try to predict progress towards select MDGs. #development

3,270 joined
intermediate practice
feb 2021
competition has ended
civic

America's Next Top (Statistical) Model - 2020

US presidential elections come but once every 4 years, and this one's a big one. There are lots of people trying to predict what will happen. Can you top them? #civic

77 joined
advanced practice
dec 2020
competition has ended
health

Warm Up: Machine Learning with a Heart

Can you predict the presence or absence of heart disease in patients given basic medical information? This is the smallest, least complex dataset on DrivenData, and a great place to dive into the world of data science competitions. #health

3,901 joined
beginner practice
oct 2019
competition has ended
health

Warm Up: Predict Blood Donations

Can you predict whether a donor will return to donate blood given their donation history? This is the smallest, least complex dataset on DrivenData, and a great place to dive into the world of data science competitions. #health

5,658 joined
beginner practice
mar 2019
competition has ended

Learn more about our data science
competitions with social impact