Matt Motoki
Kaggle Grandmaster (peak world rank #18, $350k+ in prize money). I audit, debug, and improve machine-learning models and forecasts that aren't delivering — especially when you already have data, a model, or a pipeline in place and need to find what's holding it back.
Blog
Seasonal Uniform Average
Handling streaming data with seasonal or cyclic patterns is a common task in data science and machine learning. In this blog post, we discuss a simple implementation of a seasonal uniform average that serves as a solid baseline for forecasting...
Handling streaming data with seasonal or cyclic patterns is a common task in data science and machine learning. In this blog post, we discuss a simple implementation of a seasonal uniform average that serves as a solid baseline for forecasting...
Beta Target Encoding
Bayesian Target Encoding is a feature engineering method that leverages Bayesian principles to convert categorical variables into numeric representations. Beta Target Encoding is a specialized variant designed specifically for binary classification tasks. Beta Target Encoding provides a systematic way to...
Bayesian Target Encoding is a feature engineering method that leverages Bayesian principles to convert categorical variables into numeric representations. Beta Target Encoding is a specialized variant designed specifically for binary classification tasks. Beta Target Encoding provides a systematic way to...
Competitions
In my free time, I enjoy doing machine learning competitions. I am a competitions grandmaster on Kaggle.
- 2025 NASA Airport Throughput Prediction Challenge 1st Place $30,000
- 2025 MISO New Approaches to Baselining the Performance of DERs Top Prize $7,000
- 2024 Power Patterns Challenge Teammates: Elaine Hsu 1st Place $3,000
- 2024 Predict Energy Behavior of Prosumers Challenge 6th Place $5,000
- 2023 NeurIPS CityLearn Challenge (Forecasting Track) 1st Place $1,000
- 2023 Net Load Forecasting Prize 2nd Place $150,000
- 2023 Digitizing Utilities Prize Teammates: Sorapong Khongnawang, Daniel Tabas, Baosen Zhang, and Olin Lagon Phase 1 Winner $75,000
- 2022 NeurIPS CityLearn Challenge Teammates: Sorapong Khongnawang 2nd Place $5,000
- 2022 Solar Forecasting Prize Runner Up $25,000
- 2021 Recidivism Forecasting Challenge Teammates: Marifel Barbasa and Sorapong Khongnawang Prize Winner $48,500
- 2019 Great Energy Predictor III Teammates: Isamu Yamashita 1st Place $10,000