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We are now less than 2 weeks away from QlikWorld Online, where all of our Academic Program Datathon winners will be presenting their solutions and you will have the opportunity to vote for your favourite, to crown the overall winner. So that you have the chance to get to know each of the challenge winners ahead of the event, we are highlighting each one in a blog post. Nam Mai is the winner of our first challenge which considers how to maximise the effect of actions taken to fight climate change, whilst also minimising the costs.
Nam Mai is originally from Vietnam where he studied an Economics major before taking his first job as a Business Analyst. Whilst working in this role, Nam Mai first discovered Qlik when he was tasked with finding a solution for automatic reporting. However, he then made the move to France to study a Masters in Statistics and Econometrics at Université Toulouse 1 Capitole, so didn’t get chance to fully utilise Qlik. It wasn’t until this final year of his masters during a Data Visualisation module that he decided to revisit Qlik. He used Qlik Sense for his project where he created visualisations about the various houses registered with Airbnb. Nam Mai commented that “the data modelling aspect is very easy to manage and as the scripting language is based on SQL which I am familiar with, it’s very easy to use. And the diverse choice of visualisations is very useful.”
It was then during an apprenticeship with a digital consulting company that his manager Matthieu Burel (a Qlik Luminary) made Nam Mai aware of the Qlik Academic Program Datathon. Matthieu commented that “this Qlik C40 Datathon is a great opportunity for trainees to confront a real analytics project. Keep in mind that these are really massive data sets to discover and explore with the aim of meeting real social, economic and ecological challenges. It’s a unique opportunity, as a young graduate student, to fully understand the issues from start to finish, from the data preparation to the dataviz design and related storytelling. Finally, this challenge is more than a competition, it requires imagination, creativity and a good dose of innovation! Everything you expect from a future data analyst.”
Nam Mai was instantly excited by the opportunity and was eagerly awaiting the official launch date so that he could register and get to work. He chose to tackle the challenge about maximising the effects of climate action and minimising the costs, as he felt that this is a highly relevant topic for decision makers across all organisations. He was very keen to improve the existing Action Analysis Database available from C40 Cities, to make it more comprehensive and to enable people to make even more informed decisions.
One of the most testing aspects of this challenge was that it involved a lot of text analysis and data cleansing. As Nam Mai was already familiar with Qlik Sense from his data visualisation module at University, he was keen to push himself and to gain more advanced skills. He used various resources to upskill throughout the Datathon, including courses on learning.qlik.com, Qlik Branch and a Facebook community of Qlik users in Vietnam who share a lot of knowledge and tips relating to Qlik. Nam Mai is also very thankful for the invaluable feedback that he received from his Managers during the Datathon.
Another big challenge for Nam Mai of taking part in the Datathon was balancing his time between his apprenticeship, University studies and developing his solution for the challenge. But he is certain that the time that he dedicated to the competition has been well worth it. In fact, he has already promoted the Datathon within his Qlik user Facebook community and plans to encourage his contacts to participate in upcoming datathons.
Nam Mai’s career ambition is to become a BI Professional, so being selected as a winner is a great asset for his CV. Despite being disappointed that he will not have the opportunity to present his solution at the QlikWorld in-person event, it’s clear that QlikWorld Online will still be a great opportunity for him to network and to present his application to an even wider audience. We are excited to see what the future will hold for him! Register today to get your front row seat and to vote for your favourite Datathon solution.