From Nov. 7th to Nov.9th, the Consortium on Analytics for Data-Driven Decision-Making (CAnD3) and the Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy co-hosted their first international workshop at Florida State University (FSU). The Pop Aging DataViz Workshop led by CAnD3 data instructor Dr. Sakeef Karim, brought together the 2023-2024 cohort of CAnD3 Fellows along with students from FSU for a hands-on and interactive workshop on data visualization in R.
Featured image: The 2023-2024 CAnD3 Fellows with staff and participants at the 2023 PopAging DataViz Workshop co-hosted by CAnD3 & Florida State University (FSU).
As part of the three-day workshop, the CAnD3 Lunch and Learn series was held in person at FSU with the workshop participants welcoming Knowli's CEO and CAnD3 team member Emily Daina Šaras. Emily spoke with participants on the topic of Data Science on the Front Lines of COVID and provided insights on how Knowli used effective data visualizations during a global public health emergency to drive policy forward.
Over 30 participants attended this first international event. The training sessions covered topics including enhancing the complexity of initial plots, exploring animations, and incorporating interactivity and involved the utilization of packages like ggplot, tidycensus, cancensus, leaflet, mapview, and ggdag. This included demonstrations and dedicated exercise periods, providing participants with opportunities to both acquire and reinforce the skills acquired.
A key component of the workshop was the “CAnD3 Shark Tank Competition”, inspired by the popular American television show where aspiring entrepreneurs pitch their product or idea to a panel of “Sharks” (venture capitalists) in the hopes of securing funds and seed money. In this much lower stakes—but much more fun—version, the participants were challenged to create a data visualization in the three days of the workshop and on the final day, they had to effectively communicate a data story in under three minutes to a panel of “sharks”.
The Shark Tank competition allowed participants the opportunity to apply the skills of the workshop in a relaxed and supportive environment.
The grand winners of the Shark Tank competition were CAnD3 Fellows Bavisha Thurairajah and Stephen Ogbodo for their data visualization on the “Correlation Between Sugar Consumption and Happiness in 2019”. Additionally, Maria Ahmed, Shannon Mok, and Kate Marr-Laing received honorable mentions for being the audience favourite.
Below are the figures created by Bavisha and Stephen:
The CAnD3 team is immensely grateful to the team at the Pepper Institute at FSU for helping to host and organize this event. The opportunity to participate in such an insightful and groundbreaking event has been invaluable, and the CAnD3 team thanks the entire FSU community for their unwavering commitment to advancing knowledge and fostering collaborative learning experiences.
