Data Visualization Challenge

Berkeley-Haas MBA

The Challenge

The Fisher Center for Business Analytics invites all full-time and part-time Haas MBA students to participate in a data visualization challenge. Data availability is exploding, but gaining insights from data is a difficult process. Visualizing data is an important component of any analytics project, especially when the results of the analysis need to be communicated to managers. Teams are challenged to identify and address any data-driven business problem. Teams must acquire the supporting data and construct a visualization to inform their solution. The business problem may concern a private, public, or non-profit firm. Both open and proprietary data sources are valid subject to the disclosure requirements (see below). The following list is a starting point to start searching for public data sets:
Public Data Sets

Key Dates

  • Register by midnight, February 22, 2017
  • Submit by midnight, March 22, 2017
  • Results announced in early April, 2017

Evaluation

Judging will be based on the following:
  • What decision does the visualization inform and how?
  • Does the visualization capture an important pattern in the data?
  • Is the visualization a good representation of the data?
  • Is the visualization aesthetically pleasing?
  • How original is the visualization?

Judges

Will Bullock

Marketing Science R&D Manager Facebook

Lucas Davis

Associate Professor Berkeley-Haas

Tom McGinty

Reporter Wall Street Journal

Vivienne Ming

Founder & Executive Chai Socos

Minjung Park

Assistant Professor Berkeley-Haas

Maksim Pecherskiy

Chief Data Officer City Of San Diego

Reed Walker

Assistant Professor Berkeley-Haas

Registration

Teams of one to three current Haas MBA (FTMBA, EWMBA, EMBA) students can register. Individual entries are also allowed. To sign up, fill out the form below by midnight, February 22, 2017:
Program
Name
Email
FTMBAEWMBAEMBA
FTMBAEWMBAEMBA
FTMBAEWMBAEMBA


Submissions

Submit your visualization via the form on the right by midnight, March 22, 2017. The form accepts up to 3 files with a 30Mb total size limit. If you have a larger file to submit, please include a link in the message text (e.g. to a Google Drive file) Each submission should include:

  • Cover Page. Project title and the name of each team member.  For each team member, include their program affiliation (FTMBA, EWMBA, EMBA)
  • A one-paragraph description.  The description should include “what is the business problem” and “how does the visualization inform decision-making.”
  • If you are submitting a static image, please format your file as a PDF, PNG or SVG.  If the visualization is in the form of a video or interactive Web page, submit a URL to the video or page.
  • A description of the data source(s) used (provide link if the data is publicly available).
  • References (and/or links) to known visualization(s) of the same data set that you are aware of.
  • A one-page summary description of the data science process flow (including tools and methods) used to create the visualization.

Disclaimer: All submitting teams grant the Fisher Center for Business Analytics the right to publish and to publicly display the visualization and its one-paragraph description.


Awards

The winning team will receive a free sight-seeing flight around the Bay Area. Honorable mentions will receive gifts and all deserving visualizations will be on display in the Haas building.