ADSN Team Wins Global Award at UN World Data Forum
A team created under the umbrella of the Australian Data Science Network (ADSN) takes the top spot in its category at the 2024 UN World Data Forum’s ArcGIS competition.
This global contest challenges participants to craft compelling data-driven stories using ArcGIS StoryMaps, a platform that blends maps, text, images, and video into interactive web narratives. Each submission had to align with at least one U.N. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) and fit within one of four competition themes.
Dr Aiden Price, a Senior Research Associate with QUT’s Centre for Data Science, answered an ADSN call for Australian researchers to enter the competition. Aiden is also an Environmental Health Domain Expert at the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN) and he teamed up with four others from AURIN.
The team’s winning entry, Understanding Heat Risk in New South Wales, Australia, took the top spot in the theme "Effective partnerships for better data and a more equitable data ecosystem." The story highlighted the growing impact of extreme heat, the importance of building resilient communities, and prioritising climate-focused urban planning.
“In terms of research translation, this competition allowed us to take a lot of complex information and put in a form that people can digest quickly and without them having to be domain experts,” said Aiden.
The story was inspired by the Heat Health Vulnerability Indicator (HVVI) case study, part of the broader Australian Urban Health Indicators (AusUrb-HI) project. This initiative was made possible through collaboration between AURIN, the Population Health Research Network (PHRN), and the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC).
“It was an opportunity to combine our spatial knowledge with our understanding of the climate-urban pairing when it comes to vulnerability,” said Aiden.
“Visualising spatial data is very difficult, but the ArcGIS StoryMaps system allowed us to just drag our data in and then quickly visualise it with very little hassle.”
The competition story also ties in nicely with another project involving QUT’s Centre for Data Science and AURIN that Aiden is working on. The Australian Environmental Health (AusEnHealth) project aims to create a platform that will enable policy makers, planners, health managers, researchers and the public to access, visualise and analyse environmental health data.
“The root of the problem involves the climate, environmental health, and population vulnerability. These are all elements of the AusEnHealth project. As different populations get exposed to more extreme climates, we need to find ways to mitigate or reduce that exposure,” said Aiden.
The Medical Research Future Fund National Critical Research Infrastructure program recently awarded the AusEnHealth project a $1.9-million grant to continue to develop the platform.
The winning teams ArcGIS StoryMaps competition were announced at 2024 UN World Data Forum held in Medellín, Colombia. The other members of AURIN on the ADSN team were Annie Wu (AURIN Associate Data Engineer), Flavia Barar (AURIN Data Scientist), Jiaying Kou (AURIN Product Owner) and Emma Joughin (AURIN Head of Marketing).
You can explore the winning story on heat risk here, and further details of the competition and winners can be found on the UNWDF’s page.