APU’s Team Majestic Won A Canadian Award By Creating Convincing Dashboard Via Effective Visualisations

Staying up at 4.30 a.m. for the Awards ceremony due to time zone difference, Foong Kit Wah & Kong Xin Ying, APU’s Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Computer Science with a specialism in Data Analytics students, were overjoyed when hearing Team Majestic been selected for the Viewer’s Choice Award at the Data Visualization Competition, Data Challenge – Tell a Story with Data.



Organized by the University of New Brunswick (UNB), Team Majestic was the sole contestant representing Malaysian Higher Education Institutions in this competition category. Competed with 12 universities from Canada, the team gained nearly 1000 votes from the audiences – culminating as the highest votes winner among 26 teams. Their reward was a USD 150 cash prize and certificates. 

With aims to show Canada’s level of progression in the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals, the duo built an insightful dashboard in a form of effective Infographics. Their success was based on their ability in telling a suitable, insightful, and convincing story from a dataset via effective visualisations set it up as a dashboard and showcasing this through a poster to the viewers and judges.

Before this, for about one and a half months, the team with the guidance of their mentor-lecturer from the School of Computing, Mr Mafas Raheem, had worked hard throughout the process – from selecting a dataset which talks about the trending SDG goals of Canada to setting their presentation title as “Global Warming, Canada – Where do we stand?”

After submitting the infographic on 7th November, they then attended the “presentation round” conducted in hybrid mode on 19th November. “Our team had been given four minutes to present our key findings via the online communication platform. We focused on the impacts, barriers, and how we play our part in reducing the excessive release of greenhouse gases (GHG),” explained Foong Kit Wah.

“I have leveraged one of the key skills that I have learned during the Business Intelligence System (BIS) module in Year 2 Semester 2. It had provided me with the knowledge of utilizing Microsoft Power BI for data analysis. This eased the process of data analysis during the competition,” affirmed Kong Xin Ying. 

They both attributed this success to the mentor. Foong recounted, “Mr Mafas provided through advice in all aspects including the selection of datasets, our infographic message and designs, and the final presentation. He had consistently checked on our progress and encouraged us in many ways.” 

Kong added, “Hard works and dedication were key factors for our success in this competition.”

Both Kong and Foong are the President and Event Team Committee Member of APU’s Analytics Club respectively. They opined that being in touch with a community that is made up of like-minded individuals and data enthusiasts, had cultivated their deep interest in Data Analytics that brought them thus far.