Qlik’s IoT and Augmented Intelligence Challenge - "Say Hello to the STATiods"

[QlikSenseUpdates]

Well that’s a wrap on another very successful Qlik Data Revolution Tour 2019 and I was honored to support five of the EMEA events. It was especially exciting to see the Qlik B.I.onic Battle make its debut appearance at the Paris, London and Netherlands events – and the feedback was amazing!    - Adam Mayer,  Senior Data Evangelist and Innovator at Qlik

[QlikSenseUpdates]

The Qlik B.I.onic Battle (emphasis on the BI) comes from the same talent that brought you the Qlik IoT Race Game. This is a gamification concept to help folks better understand data in a fun way, or as one attendee put it; 

"This is a great way to make data less scary" 

We used standard IT technologies to build an IoT infrastructure along with 3D printed bots, whom we affectionally call the STAToids. Each STAToid was controlled by attendees who competed against each other in an arena.  

The idea for the Data Revolution Tour events was simple; in homage to the Rugby app which was on at the time, attendees could score points by using their STAToid to push a ball into their opponent's goal. They could also try tipping their opponent over and win the game by a Knockout, which would score them more points- but they needed to be quick as the game is timed, which adds to the excitement.

What's data got to do with all this? Well, the arena was watched over by a 'Gods-eye' webcam which used visual analytics to track the STAToids every movement. How? Each STAToid had a QRCode so they could be individually identified and tied to the attendees who were playing.  

Augmented Intelligence Challenge

All the movement data and points scored from goals and knockouts were collected as time series data and all fed into a Qlik Sense app to allow full exploration of the game data enabling attendees to draw out better game strategies for next time. 

The Qlik Sense app was used to measure player's performance and allow discoveries of further insights. Details such as the total number of games played and points scored by each STAToid were available at an aggregated level along with a Leaderboard of players ranked by points and Knockouts achieved. The movement flows of each STAToid was also displayed using Qlik GeoAnalytics capabilities.  

Watch this video for an overview:  

You can also watch me discuss the Qlik B.I.onic Battle at the London Data Revolution Tour with our own John Sands on YouTube or listen to the Qlik podcast on PodBean 

The Future of Augmented Intelligence is bright! 

This was only the first generation of the B.I.onic Battle format. The plan is to build on this experience and go much bigger and better at QlikWorld (formally Qonnections) in May of 2020.  

We are looking at bringing in more games to test attendee’s skills and strategies. We also want to experiment with Augmented Intelligence and build on the potential to have an A.I. controlled STAToids that humans can pit their wits against. Predictive analytics might also be used to bring augmented intelligence to the challenge by using our Cognitive Engine to surface insights like best paths and strategies to take to win a game within the fastest amount of time.  

But we don’t want to stop there - the Qlik B.I.onic Battle was conceived from the beginning to be packaged up and shared amongst fellow Qlikkies and for our Partners around the globe to be used at their events.  

Ultimately after QlikWorld we have plans to further invest in B.I.oinc Battles by leveraging Qlik Community and Qlik Branch to provide ways to make this as an open-source project so you too can get involved and create your own versions of the Qlik B.I.onic Battle and apps.  

More to come on Qlik's STATiods, and make sure to follow the evolution of this innovation in 2020! 

- Adam Mayer,  Senior Data Evangelist and Innovator at Qlik