We caught up with the winner of the second round of the On Think Tanks Data Visualisation competition about their inspiration and experience creating the winning piece.
Visualising the Past, Present and Future of Carbon Emissions, an interactive visualisation by Bill Dugan at the World Resources Institute, USA, is an innovative concept that had big impact. We spoke to Bill about his team’s inspiration for the graphic and his advice for anyone else looking to use interactive visuals to tell a story.
We caught up with the winner of the first round of the On Think Tanks Data Visualization competition about their inspiration and experience creating the winning piece. Don’t limit HER possibilities, a static visualization by Eric Barrett at JumpStart Georgia, won round the judges with its original use of photography and creative manner of telling the story about STEM education for girls in Georgia. We wanted to unpack Eric's motivation for the graphic, the origins behind its unusual style and some of the challenges they faced during the process.
Yet there may be another way that think tanks can spread their ideas to drive real change. We think this could begin by showing and not just telling. Instead of drafting policy papers describing how systems ought to work, think tanks should consider building software and data visualizations that demonstrate how systems can and do operate in practice. This is not as hard as it sounds -- there are some tried and tested steps worth considering.
After the end of the On Think Tanks Data Visualisation competition, we were able to catch up with the winner of the Third Round as well as the final overall winner of the competition, Michal Tošovský. Michal led the team at Otevrena spolecnost, o.p.s. -- a Czech think tank focusing on police and public security -- that is behind Mapping Czech Crime, a visualisation that we think does what it says on the tin and does it well!
The other week I had the good fortune of participating in an excellent meeting in Prague hosted by the Open Society Foundations: Policy Research, Technology and Advocacy Event @ the Hub. The event was designed to bring experts together from across Central and Eastern European think tanks to share ideas and learn from each other on innovative approaches to evidence-based advocacy and communications.
