Trio Beats Out Teams From Other Top East Coast Organizations by
Solving Slugger José Bautista
HERNDON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 18, 2016--
The big data team from K12 Inc. solved a problem that most Major League
Baseball teams have struggled with for the past seven years – how to get
Toronto Blue Jays’ slugger José Bautista out.
K12’s team – which consisted of senior director of systems and
technology Adam Paul, senior director of product management Ben Graff
and data scientist Haitao Du – won the 2016 Baseball Analytics Hackathon
presented by the Baltimore Orioles and consulting firm Booz Allen
Hamilton.
K12 is a technology-based education company which utilizes advances in
technology to provide children access to high-quality education
regardless of their geographic location or socio-economic background.
The company offers proprietary curriculum and educational services for
students worldwide in kindergarten through 12th grade. K12 delivers its
educational content and learning systems to students primarily through
virtual public and private academies.
At K12, the big data team focuses on analytics and adaptivity,
predicting at-risk students from an engagement and academics perspective
and devising differentiated paths for students depending on their
proficiency within the curriculum. The team looks for learning patterns
and effectiveness of learning solutions to help inform future
instruction and curriculum and program development.
“We thought the hackathon would be a great way to see what other folks
in the area are capable of and what they do,” Paul said. “As a new team,
we thought it would be a good bonding experience and would help sharpen
our skills and let us know how we were performing against some of the
best companies and best universities in the space.”
The 21 participating teams were provided with a large data set called
PITCHf/x for every pitch that has been thrown in a Major League Baseball
game over the last three years. The teams were given an open-ended
mission: use the data to solve a problem that is actionable in the game
and present it back to the judges in eight hours.
After realizing their original problem was too complex for the time they
were given, the K12 team shifted their focus to determining the best
sequence of pitches to get a given hitter out. While the trio calculated
for every hitter in baseball, their three-minute presentation focused on
the Blue Jays’ Bautista.
The judging was based on what the teams did with the data and how well
they presented the problem and its solution, and the K12 trio won the
grand prize – luxury suite tickets to a 2016 Orioles game.
“Essentially what it shows you is the level of competence that we have
in this area,” said K12’s chief technology officer and senior vice
president of software product development, Bala Balachander, who
oversees the big data team. “We didn’t have a big data team three years
ago. We knew we had a good team but it is great to get validation from
others. Big data analytics is a very strategic area for K12 and I think
we are positioned well with this team.”
About K12 Inc.
K12 Inc. (NYSE:LRN) is driving innovation and advancing the quality of
education by delivering state-of-the-art digital learning platforms and
technology to students and school districts across the globe. K12’s
award-winning curriculum serves over 2,000 schools and school districts
and has delivered more than four million courses over the past decade.
K12 is a company of educators with the nation’s largest network of K-12
online school teachers, providing instruction, academic services and
learning solutions to public schools and districts, traditional
classrooms, blended school programs and directly to families. The K12
program is offered through K12 partner public schools in approximately
two-thirds of the states and the District of Columbia, and through
private schools serving students in all 50 states and more than 100
countries. More information can be found at K12.com.
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Source: K12 Inc.
K12 Inc.
Jessica Schuler, 571-405-2211
jschuler@k12.com