Nest your business: a visual solution for virk data

Friday 23 October, the sound of applause faded away, and group number two was leaving the presentation area with a big smile on their faces. We met up with three out of the six group members for an interview about their solution for Virk Data.

The students came up with the solution “Nest your business”, a platform or service that people can use on the Virk Data website. The target audience of the platform is a company or entrepreneur that wants to know the inner workings of a given neighborhood to see what kind of businesses are in the area; furthermore, the platform allows for a historical market overview of the area.

Another function reveals the available places for rent or to buy in the locality. The function simply redirects users to websites or real estate agents working in the area. Aside from business owners, students, researchers or government officials can use the platform to investigate the social and environmental dynamics of different neighborhoods.

The core part of the solution focuses on historical analyses that will help users predict the future success of a business by revealing challenges and obstacles that might not otherwise be apparent.

“It has been interesting, and I have learned a lot. I didn’t know that you could visualize data… or more how to make the data valuable,” says Sabia.

The group found the website of Virk Data a bit confusing because the website have one main page and three sub-pages. Within those sub-pages, it is difficult to find the specific data that would make the platform more efficient. In short, the issue is how to make it easier to navigate the website.

“We had to really dig in cause we couldn’t compare different companies in the same branch or the same field,” says Mikolaj.

The students in the group were really enthusiastic about working on the case, and everyone was involved in the process and solution.

“We all made decisions together and had a really nice group who were really into the project, so we didn’t use that much time on the brainstorm we all knew what we wanted to do and jumped in,” says Elena.

The criticism of the workshop was that the teachers could have been more interactive, as they where staying too much at their desks.

“It was only [when] we had the guts to ask them [that] they would help. But the information about the assignment was really clear, so that was good,” says Elena.

The positive part of the workshop was that there was no competition — everyone was really open about their idea and shared their information.

Article written by Renaldo Kaulins, Dainius Vitkevicius, Josef Rasmussen and Martin Cohen Laizerowitch