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Participate in Microsoft BI DataMashUp Contest & You could win $3000 Prize

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Hello Data Junkies & Chart Lovers,

I have a fun announcement for you. If you like to analyze data and present results in charts, then you can win up to $3000 in prizes by participating in Microsoft’s BI DataMashUp Contest. The contest is on from September 8th and runs until 28th.

MS BI DataMashUp Contest

How to Participate in this contest?

  • Head over to DataMashUp Facebook App
  • Follow the instructions to download PowerPivot CTP3 & Data sets
  • Analyze and present results using Excel
  • Upload your visualization screenshots to their site
  • And if you won, you could walk away with $3000 or $1500 or $500 worth prizes.

Guess who is judging this contest?

You are right. I am going to judge this contest, along with few other industry experts & Microsoft employees. I am eager to see what you can come up with and learn from your techniques. So go ahead and participate. Visit DataMashUp page for details.

Special thanks to Romain & BI Team at Microsoft:

Thanks to Romain, Emilie from Microsoft who invited me to judge this contest. 🙂

More info & Tutorials on PowerPivot:

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17 Responses to “Participate in Microsoft BI DataMashUp Contest & You could win $3000 Prize”

  1. Matt says:

    For some reason I can't download the weather data from the marketplace. I live in the UK - am I not able to get to the data due to my location?

    Matt

  2. Mustafa says:

    Hi,

    mine sounds like above too. I live in Turkey and on weatherbug page it writes "NOT AVAILABLE IN YOUR MARKET". how can I obtain this data and get involved in this competition? I could subscribe to the other dataset.

    thank you,

  3. Oleksiy says:

    It's limited to the USA residents only:
    http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_business_intelligence1/archive/2011/08/31/the-powerpivot-data-mashup-contest-is-here.aspx

    You are eligible to enter this Contest if you meet the following requirements at time entry:

    You are a legal resident of the 50 United States and District of Columbia, and are 18 years of age or older.
    If you are 18 of age or older, but are considered a minor in your place of residence, you should ask your parent’s or legal guardian’s permission prior to submitting an entry into this Contest; and
    You are NOT an employee of Microsoft Corporation or an employee of a Microsoft subsidiary; and
    You are NOT involved in any part of the administration and execution of this Contest; and
    You are NOT an immediate family (parent, sibling, spouse, child) or household member of a Microsoft employee, an employee of a Microsoft subsidiary, or a person involved in any part of the administration and execution of this Contest.
    This Contest is void outside the geographic area described above and wherever else prohibited by law.

  4. andreas.wpv says:

    they seem to have increased it to 5000 US$. Not my league, but great to have a contest on something like this.

  5. Rohit1409 says:

    Great Contest but No Entries from India [Bet they will have less to compete ;)], nevertheless Chandoo do try to share inspirational entries if possible !!!

    Cheers
    Rohit1409

  6. Greg says:

    I live in the US and have tried to download and am unable to. In addition, i cannot download the data. Also, after I tried downloading the powerpivot, my internet went crazy. it took me over an 30 minutes to fix it. Chandoo, any suggestions?

  7. Greg G says:

    Kind of sounds like EA in a way.. messed up systems after download/install. Must be a form of DRM which I don't want on my system anyway.

  8. Arti K says:

    🙁 The download limits are ridiculous. The data import feature embedded within Excel won't give you the flexibility to filter with all the fields (just a select few), and it won't tell you how many records it will download. And after "Downloading page 230..." it tells me that my subscription to that particular data has been "locked" and that I should cancel and re-subscribe. If finding data is this difficult...

  9. Daniel Damin says:

    Not available for Brazil too =/
    Bad news!!

  10. Tanja Groth says:

    Same for Denmark - shame, I was excited about this one!

  11. Matt says:

    Overall very disappointing, not only that they seem to have made it difficult to get hold of the data (if you can), but putting a 'wall' around their data so it can only be accessed by people in certain locales doesn't work for me. I wouldn't have minded not being able to enter the competition but would have liked the opportunity to play with the data for fun anyway.

  12. Romain says:

    Hi everyone,

    This is Romain at Microsoft; I'm the digital marketing manager for Microsoft BI. Thank you very much for your feedback regarding the Data MashUp contest and I apologize for the issues you may be having. I wanted to let you know that we are investigating the data access issues mentioned above and working to make some updates soon which should make participating in the contest easier.

    Additionally, while we unfortunately can't change eligibility for this contest, we are also looking into what we can do to launch a follow-up promotion where everyone can participate regardless of location.

    Best,
    Romain

  13. Stephen says:

    I'm sure there is probably some disclaimers out there, for those that have been able to download the data, are you allowed to publish it and if so will you?

    @ Matt - "...for fun anyway" I know you would have whipped the competition and they just fear you 🙂

  14. Hui... says:

    @All
    If your under 22, as at June 15, 2012, and doesn't matter where you live you might also have a look at
    http://www.certiport.com/portal/common/htmllibrary/mswwcompetition/home.html
    .
    What about us old buggers who are 23?

  15. Kevin says:

    This has been a frustrating contest (it was extended until Oct 5th). Like others I can't access the weather data due to the data limit (with no warning from PowerPivot). Now whenever I try to access the weather data feed, it just says "503 Server Unavailable." A more descriptive error message would have saved me a lot of time.

    And tonight, the DataMashUp app page on Facebook is down. I'm not sure if it's a Facebook problem or a MS problem. Either way, it's frustrating.

  16. Romain says:

    @ Kevin, I'm sorry for the frustration in regards to the issues with the Data MashUp contest. We extended the contest and opened up the data sets from just weather and crime to any free data sets found in Windows Azure Marketplace to help resolve data limits with the weather data and make it easier to participate in the contest. I am also unfortunetly currently experiencing issues accessing the app and working with our support team to resolve this as soon as possible.

  17. Romain says:

    Hi everyone,

    We had an internal issue with the Data MashUp app which caused it to accidently close down ahead of schedule. This was resolved a few hours ago and I’m happy to report the app is back up and running. As a result, we've decided to extend the contest another 24 hours. The new deadline will be 11:59 PT Thursday October 6th 2011. I want to again apologize for any issues or frustrations you've had regarding the contest and hope this helps in getting your submissions in. Thank you very much for your feedback, interest, and participation in the MSBI Data MashUp challenge.

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