Our guest today is Christof Henkel, Senior Deep Learning Data Scientist at NVIDIA and world number 1 on Kaggle: a competitive machine learning platform.

In our conversation, we first discuss Christof's PhD in mathematics and talk about the importance of maths in a Data Science career. Christof then explains how he started on Kaggle and how he progressed on the platform to become the world number 1 amongst millions of users. We also dive into recent competitions that he won and the algorithms that he used. Christof finally gives many advice on how to win Kaggle competitions and progress in your career.

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Link to Train in Data courses (use the code AISTORIES to get a 10% discount): https://www.trainindata.com/courses?affcode=1218302_5n7kraba

Follow Christof on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-christof-henkel-766a54ba/

Follow Neil on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leiserneil/  

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(00:00) - Introduction

(03:00) - How Christof Got Into The Field

(07:59) - The Role of Mathematics In Data Science Careers

(12:27) - Why Christof Joined Kaggle And How?

(21:11) - Reducing Model Overfitting 

(27:03) - Three Steps To Succeed On Kaggle

(33:56) - Kaggle VS Applied Machine Learning In Industry

(40:12) - How He Became World Number 1

(46:02) - A Recent Competition That He Won

(56:59) - His Role At NVIDIA 

(01:01:24) - Startup Experience 

(01:06:43) - Career Advice