  Data Science research is undergoing a revolution fueled by the transformative
power of technology, the Internet, and an ever increasing computational
capacity. The rate at which sophisticated algorithms can be developed is
unprecedented, yet they remain outpaced by the massive amounts of data that are
increasingly available to researchers. Here we argue for the need to creatively
leverage the scientific research and algorithm development community as an axis
of robust innovation. Engaging these communities in the scientific discovery
enterprise by critical assessments, community experiments, and/or crowdsourcing
will multiply opportunities to develop new data driven, reproducible and well
benchmarked algorithmic solutions to fundamental and applied problems of
current interest. Coordinated community engagement in the analysis of highly
complex and massive data has emerged as one approach to find robust
methodologies that best address these challenges. When community engagement is
done in the form of competitions, also known as challenges, the validation of
the analytical methodology is inherently addressed, establishing performance
benchmarks. Finally, challenges foster open innovation across multiple
disciplines to create communities that collaborate directly or indirectly to
address significant scientific gaps. Together, participants can solve important
problems as varied as health research, climate change, and social equity.
Ultimately, challenges can catalyze and accelerate the synthesis of complex
data into knowledge or actionable information, and should be viewed a powerful
tool to make lasting social and research contributions.
