The Netflix Challenge and what it has to do with math!

Netflix, Amazon, Zalando and others are focusing on one thing in particular when it comes to customer loyalty: good recommendations for new products, films, clothing etc. that are tailored to the user. To this end, these companies develop recommendation systems that can predict as well as possible what the respective user might like.

To further improve its own recommendation system, Netflix set up a challenge in 2006. The team that could predict at least 10 % more accurately which movies a user would like had a chance to win the grand prize of $1 million!

In the workshop you will work with the original data from the Netflix Challenge and develop your own recommendation system. You will apply commen strategies from the field of artificial intelligence.

There are two different versions of this learning module:

Version 1 (Matrix factoring):

Duration: from 5 hours (incl. lunch break)
Contents: Data Science, scalar product, vectors, matrices, Machine Learning
Previous knowledge: Function concept, differential calculus, linear systems of equations
Target group: Mathematics courses from grade 10
Created by: Sarah Schönbrodt
Registration: Appointments can be made individually using this form.

Variante 2 (Neighbourhood method)

Duration: from 5 hours (incl. lunch break)
Contents: Data Science, vectors, distance between vectors
Previous knowledge: Vectors, scalar product, mean value, absolute value function, trigonometric functions
Target group: Mathematics courses from grade 10
Created by: Lisa Rantzau, Sarah Schönbrodt
Registration: Appointments can be made individually using this form.

Material

The interactive learning material can be accessed via the online platform workshops.cammp.online. How to create an account on the platform and use the material is explained in this video. In addition, accompanying material is provided for teachers on the online platform, which can be accessed via a password that can be requested by e-mail.