Booz Allen & Kaggle Challenge Data Scientists, Medical Community to Improve Cancer Screening using Artificial Intelligence through $1 Million Competition

Cancer is an intensely personal disease for many of us: it hits loved ones at home, colleagues at work and friends in our communities. In fact, two out of every five people in the U.S. will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetimes, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Recognizing that improving cancer screening and treatment is among the most important responsibilities we have in the next decade, Booz Allen Hamilton (NYSE: BAH) and Kaggle today announced that the third annual Data Science Bowl will inspire data scientists and medical communities around the world to use artificial intelligence to improve lung cancer screening technology.

This year’s Data Science Bowl aligns to the call of the Vice President’s “Cancer Moonshot”, announced in January 2016, to unleash the power of data to help end cancer as we know it. The 90-day Data Science Bowl competition will award winners with $1 million in prizes. The funds for the prize purse will be provided by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.

”Artificial Intelligence and human ingenuity can be powerful in the fight against cancer,” said Dr. Josh Sullivan, senior vice president Booz Allen Hamilton.  “Through last year’s Data Science Bowl, hedge fund analysts who had no medical experience created an algorithm that can review heart MRI images on par with trained technicians, helping to better heart disease screening. This year, data scientists—professional and hobbyists alike—can make a difference in the lives of millions of people facing a cancer diagnosis.”

“The Data Science Bowl is an exciting opportunity for data scientist to work with unique data sets that they wouldn’t have access to unless conducting medical research,” said Anthony Goldbloom, CEO, Kaggle. “This year’s competition has an especially important goal. By reducing the false positive rate of low-dose CT scans, we can not only prevent thousands of inaccurate lung cancer diagnoses, but also save lives through critical early detection of cancer.”

To join the Data Science Bowl and the Kaggle community, visit DataScienceBowl.com. Competitors can download the data set and participate in the competition by registering on Kaggle.com.

For more information about past Data Science Bowl competitions, visit DataScienceBowl.com/Competitions.