Extended: Hadoop Programming Challenge

October 4^th update:

The Hadoop Programming Challenge just got extended
till Monday, October 10th!

Lately more and more of my interest is invested in Big Data. And the future of Big Data and Data Analytics sounds so appealing that you might be forgiven to believe it's too good to be true.
In this context, I was intrigued by Alex Popescu's reality check:

1. Even if technology costs decreased over time, the investment in creating data startups are still high.
2. Financial institutions are not investing (too much) into data technology companies.
3. There are only a few companies that are able to accumulate significant amounts of useful data.
4. There are even fewer companies that are able to use effectively the huge amounts of data.

When I read of few companies that accumulate significant amounts of useful data and even more, fewer that make effective use of the huge amounts of data, I strongly believe that the efforts made to tame huge amounts of meaningful data were far from few.

The Philosopher's Stone

photo by Ahmed Mater

Speaking of effort, we all know that effort does not mean anything if it does not deliver results! Quoting Leon Katsnelson, those even fewer companies are comparable with alchemists that discovered their philosopher’s stone:

I think of the internet heavyweights like Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Yahoo! as alchemists. They figured out a way to turn massive amounts of data in to gold. Unlike alchemists of the middle ages, these modern-day wizards have found their philosopher’s stone. They call it Hadoop. Hadoop lets them crunch massive amounts of data to extract keen business insight, which, if applied properly turns data in to gold. How else can one explain these incredible valuations for such young companies?

I think there is an alchemist in everyone of us!
If the philosopher's stone is already discovered, wouldn't you like to turn base metals – Big Data – into gold – Big Insights?
What if you were able to obtain the philosopher's stone for free? You would still need to learn how to use it, right?

Choose your gold!

There are some people for whom gold means knowledge, and there are others for whom gold means money. But why pick sides when you can have both?
BigDataUniversity.com has teamed up with the IBM Big Data Team to sponsor three BigDataUniversity.com students on an all expenses paid trip to attend the Information on Demand (IOD) Conference 2011 in Las Vegas.
Vegas, baby!
Here's all you have to do for an opportunity to be selected, the rules are simple:

1. Register with BigDataUniversity.com.
2. Enroll and complete the free Hadoop Fundamentals I course by October 10^th.
3. You’ll receive a certificate of completion and an invitation to participate in the Hadoop Programming Challenge.
4. On October 3^rd October 12^th, three participants to this challenge will be selected for a free, all expenses paid, trip to IOD 2011 in Las Vegas on October 23^rd—27^th.

But until you get on with the challenge, one more detail: although the course is free, and the trip has all expenses paid, if you will chose to do the course work in the cloud, do expect to incur some cloud-related usage charges! For the time it took me to complete the course, it amounted to approximately a toonie in Amazon charges.

Good luck!