Another successful datathon event was concluded by Anurag University on June 28-30th. This event saw more than 600 participants working on different themes. Around 90 participants worked on Qlik Sense under the data analytics theme, showcasing a growing engagement with Qlik and the Academic Program.
Last week the Qlik Academic Program ran an online session for the University of Liverpool for student studying a master’s in business analytics and big data.
I feel pleased to introduce our new Educator Ambassador for 2024, Daniel E. O ‘Leary from the University of Southern California. He lives in the Los Angeles, California.
Daniel O’Leary isa senior member ofthe faculty in the Leventhal School of Accounting, at the University of Southern California (USC). Dan is a full professor who teaches courses on data and analytics and accounting information systems. This is Dan’s first year as a Qlik Academic Program Educator Ambassador.
Dan introduced Qlik into Leventhal’s curriculum as part of the addition of a new master’s degree in accounting focused on data and analytics, in the 2018 – 2019 school year. As part of that new degree, USC’s Leventhal School of Accounting worked with their different stakeholders to help determine theprogram’scontent. Those stakeholders included one of the big 4 accounting firms, which asked that Qlik be included as one of the tools built into the coursework, because of its importance to them and their clients.
Dan created two new courses to get students the knowledge that they needed to be able to use data and analytics, including artificial intelligence, business intelligence, databases, enterprise resource planning systems, robots and text mining. The course innovation was not just content, but also includes substantial hands-on experiences, as Dan flips the classroom to engage the students.
After careful consideration,Danelected touse Qlik in hisclass to capture the importance of cloud computing and cloud-based business intelligence (BI). Cloud computing also facilitates a classroomin whichstudents have both windows-based and Apple Mac-based computing. Using cloud-based software eliminates the problems of finding software that not only works in both environments but also works the same way. With cloud-based software, students see things done the same way in both environments.
In Dan’s teaching, he works to integrate Qlik with different software. For example, in addition to Qlik, Dan uses other software, including RapidMiner and ChatGPT in his teaching.As part of histeaching focus, he teaches students to useother software, not onlybyusing and understanding other software, butbyintegratingtheir understanding acrossdifferent software. For example, projects using RapidMiner are expected to be integrated with Qlik. Similarly, when working with Qlik, students are encouraged to use ChatGPT to support their work with Qlik, providing insights for using Qlik and for data and analytics in general.
Perhaps most importantly, the students feel like they benefit from learning Qlik. As part of his teaching, Dan asks the students which assignments, tools and speakers that the students enjoyed the most and found the most important. This year, 60% of the students listed the classwork with Qlik. As noted by one student “I found the Qlik assignment the most rewarding.” Another student noted, “Qlik’s interface is user-friendly and easy to understand.” As noted by still another student, “I enjoyed Qlik … the most.”
Dan’s use of Qlik in the classroom also has paid off for students on the job market. This last term one of his students found an analyst job because of her classroom work with Qlik.
We hope to engage with Daniel during his journey as the Qlik Educator Ambassador and gain more insights about his use of Qlik at USC.
For more information about our Ambassador Program, please visit:qlik.com/us/company/academic-program/ambassadors
Educators and students looking for free analytics software and training can apply to the Academic Program by visitingqlik.com/us/company/academic-program
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This week we would like to introduce Angelika Klidas, who happens to be a returning Educator Ambassador. We are excited to select Angelika as an Ambassador for the 3rd year in a row due to her continued enthusiasm for Qlik’s Academic Program and her efforts in 2023.
Angelika’s journey with Qlik began in 2008 when she started out installing and managing a successful QlikView Competence Center as a team manager of the team for a Governmental Organization in the Netherlands. Since then, she has always been a huge Qlik Advocate in both her day job and her university teaching. Angelika works currently as an Advisor & Trainer and the Business Data Challengers and is responsible for the BDC Academy, sales and account management along with some innovative work!She also teaches Data and Analytics at theUniversity of Applied Sciences in Amsterdamwhich is her part time role. She is a conceptual thinker who lives by the phrase “think big, act small, and scale fast” which she uses to inspire others to evolve in their use of data and analytics.
In 2022, Angelika began writing a book together with Qlik’s Chief Learning Officer Kevin Hanegan about Data Literacy. The book was formally launched on the 30thof November 2022 and is called “Data Literacy in Practice”. The book is available through Amazon.com and Packt.com.
Angelika applied to become a Educator Ambassador with the Qlik Academic Program as she is passionate about educating students in data analytics and championing the cause of Data & AI Literacy. Due to the change in situation in the field of education, she included new aspects in her teaching style which include setting up training materials “how to use Qlik Sense from an analysis perspective so that students know and understand the full power of Qlik Sense, using AHA Slides (to make the lectures more interactive) and the book “Data Literacy in Practice”. Her book is now also a mandatory book for the University. With the help of the techniques from the book and learning to work with Qlik Sense helps her students not only to analyze the data in a better manner but also how to help organizations form a data strategy, develop organizational KPI’s and build amazing dashboards & reports.
Angelika is proud of the fact that she is the Qlik Academic Program Ambassador and has included the Educator Ambassador badge, mentioned it on her resume and highlights it in her presentations! This year again she is presenting twice at Qlik Connect and is also a Panelist for around the topic ethical handling of data.
In Angelika’s words, “I love the power of grey, love the academic program and the great benefit that it gives to me and my students. My students can pursue their dreams when they would like to work in data and analytics .” She is excited about the fact thatsome of her students got a job in the data and analytics world, which is amazing! An interesting fact is that since 2008, 34% of her 295 students are working in the field of data and analytics. Her main goal for 2024 is to work on new training materials for Data & AI Literacy in Dutch and English. Angelika has developed several Generative AI trainings that help people (at school and in her commercial work field) to use the Gen AI tools, but also she trains them to question the outcome. Questioning the results, either from insights that we create or the results that we get from the Gen AI tools we use is mega important. Next to that Angelika has developed a “Serious Data Training” where she combines a the first basic concepts of Data & AI Literacy, a Data Escape Room and a session of reflecting on the soft skills that people need during the process of data informed decisions.
Angelika feels that more and more organizations are now emphasizing the importance of Data & AI Literacy. She loves to work with the four pillar system which should be the basis of every organizations journey towards “Active Intelligence” so they will be future ready!
In Angelika’s words, “I love the Qlik Academic Program, it helps the students in gaining analytics knowledge for my students. They can learn at their own pace and look for solutions through the learning platform, but also use the knowledge from the community anddemos.qlik.comwhere they can find all kinds of cool solutions”
We are looking forward to working closely with Angelika during her tenure as an ambassador yet again and creating more links with Universities in the Netherlands.
For more information about our Ambassador Program, please visit:qlik.com/us/company/academic-program/ambassadors
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I am pleased to introduce Angel Monjaras as the Qlik Educator Ambassador for 2024! Angel is a Professor of Business Intelligence at Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo De Mexico (ITAM), where he’s been using Qlik in his teaching for seven years.
For this year’s iteration of his course, he is debuting a BI Best Practices Catalog on Qlik Sense that will enable students to find the most common metrics and dimensions for each business area and / or industry.
According to Angel, “This will free up class time to delve into Data Literacy and AI topics that will help students feel comfortable speaking about data, and help them stay grounded and focus on real issues and solutions, instead of jumping on the many bandwagons, buzzwords, and false promises headed their way.”
While he’s always integrated Qlik software, the past couple of years, he started to integrate some of the learning exercises from the Qlik Academic Program, “Students perform various exercises and homework, including regression analysis, visualization best practices, common visualization pitfalls, and data quality. They also design a dashboard from scratch as part of a practical course-long BI project. We use some exercises taken from QCC and the Data Analytics Curriculum, since they provide good sample data.”
Angel’s passion for Qlik goes beyond his own classroom, he has been introducing new educators from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and other universities to Qlik. Angel has conducted introductory workshops for students. Angel plans to share his knowledge even further this year, by continuing to conduct open workshops for any student at his university to join.
Angel is a 2024 Qlik Luminary and will host a session in Qlik Connect this year: “C40: Taking our world-changing work to the next level with Qlik Cloud”
For Angel, one of the most rewarding parts of teaching Qlik has been seeing his students leave university and get jobs, become Qlik customers, and even fellow professors.
Educators and students can get accessto free Qlik software and training resources, qualifications and certifications by applying to the Academic Program today:qlik.com/academicprogram
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