Recently I was so happy as I became a Kaggle Datasets Master and also an Expert in Notebooks and Discussion categories. I was ranked up as 34 of 25,756 in the Datasets category. I loved the experience throughout my Kaggle journey and I wish to share my enjoyable Kaggle journey to you in this article.

About Me 🎈

My name is Gokul Prakash P. I’m an upcoming Engineering graduate with a passion and love for Computer Science. Recently I got 4 silvers and 1 gold medals in Datasets which made me level up to Datasets Master. The spicy element which will make everyone to be shocked is I joined Kaggle just last month and within a month I progressed from Novice to Master😎

My Kaggle link: https://www.kaggle.com/gokulprakash22

Where My Journey Started 🏁

I’m pursuing my Engineering degree in an esteemed institution and I recently got a beautiful 3-months Internship opportunity with Tactlabs through my college placements. Tactlabs is a Canadian company and they mostly focus on Data Science and Machine Learning. This is the place where I got industrial exposure and also I improved my DS and ML skills a lot.

A month ago, they conducted a one-day hackathon during my Internship. Here I have to compete with other interns. That is the day where I started to contribute to Kaggle.

One-day Hackathon 📅

Few days before the hackathon, I created an account in Kaggle and Tactlabs guided me to level up from Novice to Contributor. It is very easy and it will take just 10 to 15 minutes.

During the hackathon, we were given a set of datasets and the task is to show our Machine learning skills in those datasets. We have to analyze those datasets, visualize those data, and to use ML algorithms to predict something from those data. Intern members were grouped into teams and each team has 2 to 3 members. It started at 9 am IST and last long till 7 pm IST. We worked that whole day with sufficient rest taken at intervals.

We have to work in Kaggle notebooks and we have to publish them at the end. We enjoyed the whole hackathon and also learned a lot. Though we ended as a Runner up, we got satisfied by gaining a wonderful experience and also learned many new things.

This one-day hackathon is the starting point where I started to get addicted to Kaggle.

About My Datasets 📁

I have created 5 datasets so far during my Internship. One dataset is about population statistics in cities and towns of Tamil Nadu and the remaining four datasets are related to hospitals in India. These data are collected from various sources and again Tactlabs helped me in collecting those data.

FEATUREPRENEUR — A Platform To Master Our Technical Skills 🖥️

Featurepreneur is an initiative created by Tactlabs. It is an awesome platform to showcase our talents. Featurepreneur consists of many feature requirements given by employers or higher officials of companies. These features are mostly based on DS and ML. We have to build a feature/project based on the requirements provided in this platform. After completing a feature, one can get paid and also recommendations from companies based on the quality of work done.

I worked with a team and completed a few features. We have earned 160CAD(Canadian Dollar) so far. Apart from money, this platform helped me a lot and created an opportunity to learn and improve my Machine Learning skills.

With the skills I gained in this platform, I created few notebooks and engaged a lot in Kaggle's discussion. Thus in just two weeks, I became a 3x Kaggle Expert (Expert in Datasets, Notebooks, and Discussion categories). After becoming a 3x Expert, I got excited very much and started to love Kaggle more than before.

Gold Medal Achievement 🥇

To become a Datasets Master, we have to achieve 4 silver and 1 gold medals. Gaining a Bronze medal is very easy. An impressive and useful topic and an attractive title for our work are enough to get a Bronze medal. Gaining a silver medal is a bit difficult. Our work should be good enough to get a Silver medal. But gaining a Gold medal is the real challenge. It requires a lot of hard work with consistency.

I got 5 Silver medals for my 5 datasets. But I need a gold medal to become a Datasets Master. I tried to improve my datasets in all possible ways. I increased the usability value to 10 for all my datasets. I shared my works with all my Kaggle friends. As a result of all the above, people started to create some notebooks with my datasets. I was so happy to see the insights and notebooks which were created from my datasets.

Finally, within a month from the day I joined Kaggle, I achieved my first gold medal on Hospitals count in India dataset. After gaining the gold medal, I felt it was one of the biggest achievements of my life.

At last, I became a Kaggle Datasets Master by gaining that gold medal. 💪

Small Tips From Me 😊

Progressing in Kaggle from Novice to Expert, Master and Grandmaster are very challenging. But consistent learning and hard work will definitely lead to success. Don’t ever give up and work daily in Kaggle at least half an hour a day and so you will become a Kaggle Grandmaster one day. All the Best!!

Thanks to all my friends who supported me to rank up in Kaggle and also special thanks to Raja CSP Raman sir (Founder/Researcher at Tactii and Tactlabs) for giving me the Intern offer and also for introducing me Featurepreneur platform which helped me to master my skills and to became a master in Kaggle.

And also Thanks to you too for reading this article.👍🥰

Hope we will meet in my next article on my journey of becoming Kaggle Grandmaster. 😁