As the challenge has recently launched, we wanted to provide some additional tips and technical resources that may help as you begin forecasting! Remember this is an opportunity for you to win a share of a $200k prize purse and not all of the prizes are awarded at the end of the competition! The first milestone award is approaching at the end of April. Here are some helpful tips: 

  • Submit forecasts from up to 25 different method slots! This gives you the opportunity to submit 25 forecasts for each individual forecasting problems (IFP) — but, each method should have a consistent and describable methodology behind it which you maintain throughout the challenge. Remember to use the “method_name” property of a forecast to identify its method slot. 
  • Check your API weekly for potential newly released IFPs! New IFPs will typically be released on Wednesdays between 12:30 PM and 2:00 PM Eastern time but clarifications and IFP resolutions could occur at any time – so if possible, checking the API more frequently is recommended. For those who have an API account in the Cultivate Labs production environment, we will also send weekly notifications when IFPs are released. 
  • Review many of the planned IFPs before they’re released. We’ve posted sample IFPs for Solvers. These are forecasting questions, or IFPs, that are likely to be released during the challenge. Each IFP template includes the language of the question and details about the data that will be used to resolve questions. Use this information to get a head start and prepare for new questions. 
  • Utilize the HeroX forums! The GF Challenge community is a wealth of knowledge and very active. If you have technical questions, need solutions, or want to share code, our community of solvers embodies the power of the crowd and may be able to help you. 
  • Set up a push API to get notifications of new data! If you are set up to receive HTTP POST notifications, then instructions for how to set up an API POST hook is available on the Cultivate Labs platform in the API documentation under “push APIs”. If you have a web server, you can be notified automatically when new IFPs are posted or updated. 

Here are some technical resources that may be useful to you: 

  • GitHub Repo that contains the starter code to connect to the API: https://github.com/gfchallenge/gfc/blob/master/src/notebooks/GF%20Challenge%20API%20Example.ipynb 
  • GF Challenge Sample IFPs (forecasting questions) and resolution criteria examples that you can use to continue preparing for the challenge: https://www.gfc-staging.com/gfc/sample-questions 
  • CAMEO Event Data Codebook: http://eventdata.parusanalytics.com/data.dir/cameo.html