2021 IEEE Big Data Cup
https://bigdataieee.org/BigData2021/index.html

We invite industrial, government, and academic organizations to submit proposals to organize a Data Challenge for the 2021 IEEE International Conference on Big Data
(IEEE BigData 2021, (https://bigdataieee.org/BigData2021/index.html). Data Challenges are analytics and programming contests based on datasets released by the
organizations sponsoring the competitions. These contests will run for several months, with winners announced in the IEEE BigData 2021 in December 15-18, 2021
at Orlanda, FL, USA.

The IEEE Big Data conference series started in 2013 has established itself as the top tier research conference in Big Data.
1. The first conference IEEE Big Data 2013 ( http://bigdataieee.org/BigData2013/ regular paper acceptance rate: 17.0%) was held in Santa Clara, CA from Oct 6-9, 2013 with more than 400 registered participants from 40 countries.
2. The IEEE Big Data 2014 (http://bigdataieee.org/BigData2014/, regular paper acceptance rate: 18.5.0%) was held in Washington DC, Oct 27-30, 2014 with more than 600 registered participants from 45 countries.
3. The IEEE Big Data 2015 ( http://bigdataieee.org/BigData2015/ , regular paper acceptance rate: 16.8%) was held in Santa Clara, Oct 29-Nov 1, 2015 with more than 780 registered participants from 49 countries.
4. The IEEE Big Data 2016 ( http://bigdataieee.org/BigData2016/ , regular paper acceptance rate: 18.7%) was held in Washington DC, Dec 5-8, 2016 with close to 900 registered participants from 43 countries.
5. The IEEE Big Data 2017 ( http://bigdataieee.org/BigData2017/ , regular paper acceptance rate: 17.8%) was held in Boston, MA, Dec 11-14, 2017 with close to 1000 registered participants from 50 countries.
6. The IEEE Big Data 2018 ( http://bigdataieee.org/BigData2018/ , regular paper acceptance rate: 19.7%) was held in Seattle, WA, Dec 10-13, 2018 with close to 1100 registered participants from 47 countries.
7. The IEEE Big Data 2019 ( http://bigdataieee.org/BigData2019/ , regular paper acceptance rate: 18.7%) was held in Los Angeles, CA, Dec 9-12, 2019 with close to 1200 registered participants from 54 countries.
8. The IEEE Big Data 2020 ( http://bigdataieee.org/BigData2020/ , regular paper acceptance rate: 15.7%) was held online, Dec 10-13, 2020 with close to 1100 registered participants from 50 countries


Strong proposals will release interesting and novel datasets to the participants and propose tasks that are challenging, yet achievable within the expected timeline.
To encourage broad participation in the challenge competition, tasks and data should be made publicly accessible where possible.

We will consider topics from (but not limited to) the following big data application domains:
● Mobility
● Health and wellness
● Finance
● Advanced manufacturing
● Retail and e-commerce
● Smart City and Community
● Blockchain Technology
● Transportation and autonomous driving


The Challenges involve a released dataset and a well-defined problem with clear evaluation metrics. The challenges run on a data competition platform (e.g., Kaggle)
that maintains a leaderboard for the participants. Final winners are selected based on their standing on the leaderboard, and a 6-page report describing their
algorithms and results. There will be a workshop in the IEEE BigData 2021 conference in which the invited teams will be able to present their solution.

Tentative Competition Timeline.

Step 1 - Solicitation of big data problems/topics, April 5, 2021
Step 2 - Proposal evaluation and selection of topics/problems, April 15, 2021
Step 3 - Data Release, Platform setup and solicitation of challenge participants, May 1,
2021
Step 4 - Deadline for contest teams to submit letter of intent, June 10, 2021
Step 5 - Deadline for contest teams to submit final report and solutions, November 10,
2021
Step 6 - Announcement of winning teams, Nov 25, 2021

Data Challenge Proposal Format
Proposals should answer the following questions:

● Who are the organizers? Provide the names, affiliations, contact information, and
brief bio of the organizers.
● Which sector does the proposed Data Challenge belong to?
● What is the dataset to be released? If there are privacy concerns regarding the
data, we advise that the organizers first seek clearance from the legal department
of their organization regarding the dataset release.
● What prizes will be offered? Note that cash prizes will be shared between
competitors and BigData, to defray the expenses of hosting demonstrations of the
finalists’ submissions at BigData.
● Do you require source code with submissions?

● Challenge Specific Questions:
● What are the task and the evaluation metrics?
● What competition infrastructure will be used? Our default hosting platform is
Kaggle, which may impose fees to be borne by Challenge organizers.
If you prefer to host it on your own infrastructure, specify the reasons and the
resources you can commit for running the competition.


Deadline for proposal Submission: April 5, 2021. Please submit the proposal:
https://wi-lab.com/cyberchair/2021/bigdata21/scripts/submit.php?subarea=ProC

2021 IEEE Big Data Cup Chair
Shaun Canavan, University of South Florida (scanavan@usf.edu)