Global recognition for students at Qlik Academic Program Datathon

Posted on: 16 July 2021 by Richard Finch in Events & News

Two University of Liverpool Masters students were recently named as runners up in the global final of the Qlik Academic Program Datathon 2021.

Hari Vignesh and Lok Hin Cheng, both are currently studying a Master of Business Analytics and Big Data degree at the University of Liverpool. Hari is from Chennai in South India, which is where he studied for his bachelor’s degree. Following that he worked for Groupon as a customer analyst for 2 years and then spent 3 years at McKinsey & Company as a visual analyst. In November of 2020, he embarked upon his master’s course and made the move to live in Liverpool just a few weeks ago. Lok Hin is originally from Hong Kong but studied for his bachelor’s in Canada before working in a bank for 3 years focusing on loans and trade finance.

After finding out about the Datathon in a virtual careers lecture by Qlik, Lok Hin approached Hari to see if he would be interested in entering the datathon as a team. “I was particularly interested in participating as a team, as I enjoy working with others. I believe that you can learn a lot from complementary strengths, and an alternative approach from my own teammate can often spark new ways of thinking for me,” commented Lok Hin. 

Hari was also keen to participate in the datathon and despite only having met Lok Hin virtually in a study group he was eager to partner up. “Over the course of the datathon, I was in the final stages of preparation for my move from Chennai to Liverpool, so time management was key to making sure that our application was ready to meet the deadline. The time difference between the UK and India was also a challenge so we were truly an international team,” said Hari.

Both Lok Hin and Hari really enjoyed taking part in the datathon as it gave them the opportunity to practice their Qlik Sense skills using a large, real-life data set. Prior to the Datathon Lok Hin had taken the Business Analyst Learning Plan that was available to him via the Qlik Academic Program. Now that they have had the opportunity to really practice their Qlik Sense skills in the datathon, both are keen to take the Business Analyst qualification as well as more advanced learning modules in Qlik to develop their expertise.

The app that they have developed encompasses all 17 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and looks at how the goals are interconnected. The idea being that if you are trying to work towards one goal e.g. education, there are other goals e.g. industry, innovation, and infrastructure that will impact your progress. The app enables users to explore the progress of countries with different profiles towards each of the goals and to see how progress towards one goal can affect another. You can see a full presentation of the app by Lok Hin and Hari as well as the other finalists at QlikWorld, where you can vote for the overall winner.

Team Qlik Boom initially decided to take part in the datathon simply to learn and to have fun. But now they see presenting at Qlik World as a great opportunity to network and to further improve their knowledge of Qlik and analytics more broadly. Both are hoping that this experience will help them to continue on their chosen career paths after their master’s. Hari is shaping his career to help organizations solve problems and improve business performance as a management consultant across a broad range of industries, and Hin is considering a data analytics career in areas such as agricultural technology and investment banking.

Yuanzhu Zhan, lecturer on the Big Data Management module at the University of Liverpool who introduced the students to Qlik commented: "This event offers students an excellent opportunity to handle uncertainty and implement their new ideas of achieving the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals. It was so encouraging to see our students apply data analytics to identify real social problems and come up with solutions."