See: http://www.kaggle.com/ [1]
Their motto: We’re making data science a sport.
Also
http://www.kaggle.com/about
[2]
http://www.kaggle.com/prospect
[3]
What can we learn from this organiztaion? How can they help us deal with ever-increasing amounts of data?
Links:
[1] http://www.kaggle.com/
[2] http://www.kaggle.com/about
[3] http://www.kaggle.com/prospect
[4] http://www.aavso.org/forums/about-aavso/general-aavso-discussion