Everyone knows Netflix, it is usually the first choice for a Saturday night in or a mid-week film to break up the week. The platform currently offers somewhere around 5,000 movies (https://www.allflicks.net/uk/) for UK viewers, spanning a host of genres depending on your mood and taste.However, in an increasingly competitive market Netflix is finding it is losing ground to its rivals!The Market PlaceFor instance, Amazon Prime pumped in the region of $5 billion into content bids and original content production in 2017 and alongside the Prime subscription model, viewers also can make the most of online renting or buying of content on Amazon, mainly when certain titles aren't available on their Prime service, a feature which Netflix doesn't have the luxury of offering (http://fortune.com/2017/03/10/netflix-video-streaming-market/). Even the likes of Facebook and YouTube are investing considerable sums of money into their video content to get a slice of the action.All of this got me thinking, how could Qlik be used to demonstrate a real-world business issue like Netflix, in one of my University engagements? Maybe a hackathon?The question I got asked most - What is a hackathon?From Google's dictionary, it describes a hackathon as "An event, typically lasting several days, in which many people meet to engage in collaborative computer programming."This isn't a new concept, hackathons occur every day but are largely for the programmers and computer scientists among us and they aim to answer a real-world problem, whether with data or development of an application.Accenture and the University of BathI took this idea to Dr Güneş Erdoğan, Director of Studies MSc in Business Analytics at the University of Bath, who Qlik's Academic Program has a long-standing relationship of working alongside in teaching students about data analytics. Güneş jumped at the opportunity to offer this kind of session to his students and right away got to work on the specifics of the session.Further to the engaging with Bath, I reached out to Accenture, who has supported hackathons alongside Qlik in the past. Accenture hire a significant number of students from Bath, with engagement through career services, societies and events. Accenture hire students with all different strengths, one area they may look for is students who have a mindset geared towards data and business. A hackathon is a great way for them to increase their presence amongst the student base and maybe find those students who might not have considered careers in analytics.Hackathon or Data Challenge? That is the question.The students in Business Analytics' classes aren't computer scientists, these are our future analysts, consultants and business leaders with knowledge in various areas of data analytics, statistics and commercial business and we opened the session up further by reaching out to courses in Information Systems and the MBA degrees. This expanded the knowledge and experience of the students in the session and matches closer to a real-world business team.However, calling this a hackathon might have scared some students away that weren't adept at computer science topics, so we decided to call this a Data Challenge and the students would be using Qlik Sense and other tools if they wished, to answer;A. "What Netflix's 2018 release library should look like?"andB. "What original content should they produce?"Quick stats!Some quick information about what we providedTwo sessions; an introduction to Qlik Sense in a 3-hour workshop to learn data loading, modelling and visualisation in Qlik Sense and a 6 hour data challenge where the students would build their applications around the Netflix brief.Student signed up the Qlik Academic Program and were set tasks to complete certain Qlik Continuous Classroom modules to assist in their application build.Student numbers; Around 40 students attended both sessions and were split in groups of 3/4.Administrators; Not including myself there were 3 Accenture analysts and 2 enterprise architects from Qlik supporting across the 2 sessions.Data; We provided the students data on movies, actors, box office stats, viewership of movies and more from the last 30 years. They were strongly advised to find further information online to add context to their applications.Presentation; Each student had 5 minutes to present their findings all of which must be backed up with data.Judging; The panel of judges made up from a mixture of attendees Accenture and Qlik. Criteria was based on; Quality of dashboard, data model, presentation structure, how closely the question was answered and reasoning of original Netflix content idea.ConclusionThe teams of student came up with a wide variety of ideas from looking at trends like super hero films to line up next to big releases next year. Others looked at box office revenue as an indication to popularity and advised on original content around those figures, some threw out our idea and decided to use a simplified algorithm that Netflix use to decide their listings, to varying degrees of success.The winners, the nicely titled 'Powerful 3 C's' choose to look at movie selections not in the top 3 choices, with actors who were well known but maybe under rated in their performances but would require a smaller salary in production. They also discovered that despite being the coldest month and everyone spending all their money through Christmas, January historically has very little new releases...who knew? So, based their findings on a January release. ...View More

The Qlik Academic Program is excited to announce that 2 of our Professors have been inducted into the Qlik Luminaries Class of 2018!What is the Qlik Luminary Program?The Qlik Luminary Program brings together the best and brightest customers, partners and enthusiasts in the Qlik ecosystem. With deep drive, passion and expertise, Qlik Luminaries champion the vision of turning data into insights that lead to transformative discoveries. To learn more visit https://www.qlik.com/us/solutions/customers/qlik-luminariesProfessor Ghosh joined the Academic Program in 2017 from Vidya Jyothi Institute of Technology where he and his students use Qlik Sense for Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, E-Governance, Web Technologies and Mobile computing. Professor Carter joined the Academic Program in 2013 from National University of Singapore where he and his students use Qlik Sense for his Purchasing and Materials Management course.Together these professors and many of their students have benefited from all the amazing resources the Academic Program has to offer which has led them to a very successful journey with Qlik!. We are excited and honored that they have been selected to represent Qlik as luminaries and we congratulate their work and dedication to both their teaching and to Qlik! ...View More

What is Data Literacy?Everyone is empowered and has the right to:Access education and tools that enable data literacy. This means having full confidence to read, work with, analyze and argue data.Access quality data - full source disclosure and accountabilityCombine, cross-pollinate and interrogate data, algorithms and findingsRecent Data Literacy StatsIn a study done in Asia Pacific, Qlik found that overall 80% found they were data illiterate! Also in the Americas, only 33% of decision business makers are data literate! As a result, work performance suffers and the success of the business is impacted. To watch the full interview with Julian Quinn, Qlik's Regional Vice President of Asia Pacific visitVideos on Demand - Channel NewsAsia - Channel NewsAsiaHow can you become Data Literate?Renew your membership to the Academic Program which provides free software, course materials, training, and Qualification exams to prove basic Qlik skills and applied knowledge. To renew visit https://www.qlik.com/us/company/academic-programLearn more about data literacy and test your data literacy knowledge by visiting http://dataliteracy.info/Visit the Qlik Continuous Classroom to view the data literacy program resources http://qcc.qlik.com/course/view.php?id=811 ...View More

The 90th Academy Award show also known as the Oscars aired this past Sunday and critics and movie fanatics are a buzz with the list of winners and losers! Who were the first time winners, who were returning winners? Visit Qlik's Oscars app using Qlik Sense Mashup to analyze past winners and losers and have some fun reliving the last 90 years in film!https://webapps.qlik.com/oscars/oscars.html ...View More

The Csuit recently published an article outlining the importance of data literacy with advice and experience from Qlik's Academic Program. http://www.thecsuite.co.uk/cfo/human-resources-cfo/how-universities-should-prepare-grads-for-the-future-of-work/The job market has changed – from speaking with professors and industry professionals as part of the Qlik Academic Programme, we’re seeing more and more businesses needing to recruit staff who are data literate, with the ability to read, work, analyse and argue with data. No matter what role an employee has when they enter the working world, there will be some element of data analysis required, and – in a post-fact world full of fake news and data manipulations – these skills are becoming even more integral. ...View More

The demand for data scientists and other data and analytics professionals continues to grow in the job marketplace as enterprise organizations look to build out their business infrastructures for a new era. But even data scientists need to stay on top of new trends and technologies to stay relevant."keep learning" technology as we all know it changes so quicklyAttend classes on new techniquesDetermine your skills gapsChange positions every 2-4 years in the first 10 years of your careerTo read the full article visit Careers in 2018: Tips from a Top Analytics Recruiter - InformationWeekThe Academic Program offers the opportunity for graduates to touch upon the exact points mentioned in the article. Using the resources the program provides such as Qlik Sense software, training, and an opportunity to earn a Qlik Sense Qualification certificate, students can ensure they have the analytical skills to set them apart from their fellow graduates and appeal to many recruiters! ...View More

The Academic Program was onsite at Saint Joseph's University presenting to students attending an undergraduate course in Performance Management & Analysis. In the course students learn how to augment the Enterprise Performance Management framework with data visualizations using Qlik Sense! The presentation was hosted by Asim Lilani who covered Qlik Sense capabilities and features, what makes it unique compared to other software, how they can use it in the real world, and all the amazing resources the Academic Program provides in order to ensure they are enabled and have the data analytical skills needed for today's data driven environment. ...View More

Qlik was onsite at the Ohio State University last week presenting a capstone project between the University and the Sustainable Resilient Tanzania Community (SRTC). The University and SRTC have developed a capstone program where students from the university work with the village of Marwa in Tanzania to holistically solve a real community challenge. The project will grow over time, starting with rainwater harvesting system (2017), to water pipeline design, to introducing technology (Qlik) to students at University of Dodoma to community economic programs to assist with cultural transformation that follows the availability of clean water supply. Through the help of the Academic Program the Ohio State University Capstone professor and students have received free software, training, and much more! These resources ensure the students are well equipped to use Qlik Sense for their visit to Tanzania to help solve the communities challenges. ...View More

The Qlik Academic Program in association with Somaiya Institute of Management Studies, a leading educational institution in Mumbai organized its 4th edition of 'Somaiya International Conference on Technology and Information Management ( SICTIM) on 12th January. This year's theme was 'Datafication' with a focus on data analytics, as the theme suggests. Research papers were invited for this conference and more than 30 papers were submitted. More than 120 professors and students attended this event in a confluence of thoughts on various subjects ranking from innovative technologies to research findings. On behalf of Qlik, Jaydeep Deshpande ( Marketing Manager-India) and Feroz D'Silva ( International SI Manager) made presentations and shared their thoughts to the audience. Jaydeep presented the limitless possibilities of analytics and how data is the new oil. Feroz drew interesting analogies between theology and analytics and how this industry permeates every sphere of life today. This conference expanded the scope of the academic program and data literacy with Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and created more engagement possibilities for the future. ...View More

Yesterday my self and two of my colleagues Paul Styles and Jamie Lowe presented content on the current digital economy, Qlik's role in this expanding Data Analytics industry and a product workshop with a group of student from Henley Business School in Reading.Most of these students were preparing for their final projects which would look at a data project from design to implementation and thus products like Qlik offer great insights for their learning, not only for the projects they were looking to undertake, but also as potential career paths.I'd also like to make a shout out to my colleague Jamie Lowe, who has been at the company for only 3 months but explained the concepts of Qlik's associate model very effectively despite his short time with the company. A great learning experience all round and here is a picture of him presenting the product message. ...View More