There is a wealth of freely available information on the internet now. What if some of these data could be put to good use? QlikTech put out a challenge to create an application in QlikView that could have a positive impact on the world – using one of these data sets. Last week they announced the winners.
As you might expect the winners that have been chosen (with help from QlikCommunity members) not only have a philanthropic side to them, but are excellent examples of what can be achieved with QlikView. Of particular note, perhaps, is the design of these apps – until you start clicking around and see the familiar green/white/grey you could almost miss the fact that they are QlikView apps.There are tips and tricks that can be gained by looking at how things have been put together in these apps. Worth noting is the way that a user can be guided through an application, following a storytelling narrative around the data. Also, not constraining yourself to what is available in QlikView – linking out and embedding content from elsewhere on the internet is another theme common to more than one of these apps.
Rather than me talk about each of the applications, why not take a look yourself? QlikTech have made all of the winners available on their demo site, so everyone can benefit from the applications that have been created.
https://www.qlikview.com/us/landing/open-data-challenge-winner
All in all it was a well conceived initiative with some worthy winners. Well done to all those who took part.
Update: Jan 2014
It seems I was not the only one who decided to write a piece on this challenge. Over at Software Advice, a website that reviews business intelligence systems, they have published an excellent guest blog post by Alexandre Perrot of Keyrus where he reveals secrets of how he produced the winning entry in the Open Data Challenge and how you can design better dashboards. If you want to improve your own dashboards I can strongly recommend reading this. Find it at: https://plotting-success.softwareadvice.com/winning-dashboard-creation-tips-1213/
Thanks for acknowledging the QlikView Open Data Challenge! We had fantastic interest and results and glad to see QlikView being used for positive impact on society. Look for more exciting initiatives in 2014!
Obviously I love the product QlikView, it’s great that I can feel happy about the way that QlikTech conduct themselves as well. I will certainly be watching.