Tableau and IMDA co-organise student data storytelling competition

SINGAPORE – October 12, 2016 – Tableau Software (NYSE: DATA) today announced its partnership with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) in co-organising the National Infocomm Competition (NIC) Face-off | Data Analytics Competition 2016. The NIC is the most prestigious and largest network of ICT competitions in Singapore. It supports quality and impactful competitions which seeks to deepen students’ engagement and ICT skills each year.  Open to Secondary School and Junior College students in Singapore, regardless of their data proficiency, this competition aims to improve data analytics and visualisation skills and raise the level of interest in data storytelling.

Using public data sets from Tableau Public, government websites and other sources, this competition invites participants to create data-driven stories around the themes of “Sports” “Science and Environment” or “City and Culture.” The students compete in groups of three, working with support from their teachers.

Starting from Tableau-run, hands-on workshops and initial submissions in June, the competition is now down to 10 shortlisted entries. Tableau has also been providing in-person consultations to students who require additional help in putting together their data visualisations.

“This has been an exhilarating experience for our student participants. As an educator myself, I have been encouraging the use of self-service data analytics tools in my classroom, as it is an important skill that students of today will need to take with them into university and their future careers, regardless of industry. This competition has now given them a chance to have fun with data, create their own stories and realise how meaningful data analytics and visualisation can truly be. It has been exciting to see this through my evaluation of the results by the Junior College participants,” said Dr. Koh Noi Sian, Lecturer, School of Information Technology, Nanyang Polytechnic and one of the judges of the competition.

Education is at the core of Tableau’s mission to help people see and understand their data. Tableau’s academic programmes offer free licenses of Tableau Desktop for students and instructors, as well as special education rates for school administrators to encourage the study and use of data analytics in the classroom. Of the top 10 universities in Asia, according to the US News & World Report, all of them have students or instructors signed up for these programmes and include University of Tokyo in Japan, National University of Singapore and Peking University in China. 

JY Pook, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific, Tableau, commented: “Students have always been an important user group for Tableau. Through this partnership with IMDA, we are able to empower the participating students with data visualisation skills and provide them with the tools that they need to excel. The students will find the experience invaluable as data skills will increasingly prove to be a necessity for the workforce of the future. We aim to continue to bring the art of data storytelling to everyone who wants to work with data.”

Final winners of this competition will be announced onsite at the upcoming Infocomm Media (ICM) Youth Fest 2016 in November. For competition details and shortlisted entries, check out https://public.tableau.com/es-es/s/NIC-Face-off-Data-Analytics-Competition.