The eleventh floor of the MAC Tower in Yangon, home to Phandemeeyar Myanmar Innovation Lab, was on Saturday 6 June, 2015, abuzz with over 50 youthful computer enthusiasts, innovators, coders, web and graphic designers and app developers. This group had gathered to pool together their skills and address an issue of mutual interest: finding creative ways of enabling the public to access the 2014 Census data in a simple, user-friendly, appealing and readily available manner.

The event, dubbed ‘Census Data Mini-Hackathon,’ was organised following the release of the Census data on 29 May 2015. The aim is to help to demystify tables of census data by turning these into easy-to-use easy-to-get information, as a way to encourage even the most basic users to understand and interpret the census information.

“The aim of this event is to make that data more accessible and more easily understood by the rest of the country,” said David Madden one of the organisers of the event. 

Madden’s sentiments were echoed by the Senior Poverty Economist at the World Bank, Ms. Reena Badiani-Magnusson, who challenged the participants to think beyond internet users and develop products that can easily be accessed by the majority of the people in Mynamar. 

“Internet access is limited in Myanmar, so we encourage you to develop products that may also be accessible offline. That way, we can be assured that even people with no access to the internet have the tools to access and use the census data,” said Badiani-Magnusson. 

The ‘hackers’ faced the exciting challenge of breathing life into the 67 Union level and 44 State/Region MS Excel tables that were released to the public on internet and through DVDs immediately after the launch of the results. 

“Releasing the Census results is one thing, having them accessible and utilised by the wider public is another,” said Ms. Petra Righetti, UNFPA Donor Coordinator. “Census data in form of tables can often be dry and uninteresting to most people. We count on your creativity to make the data more exciting and appealing, so that more people can use it to contribute in the development of the country,” she added. 

Phyu Hninn Nyein of Proximity Designs was part of the team that was working on the visualisations. She had, within a timeframe of 2 hours, come up with an interesting Excel-based visualisation tool that could show graphs for variables for a particular location selected by the user. 

This is a simple tool, based on Excel pivot tables,” she proudly professed. “All the data user needs to do is to select the variable (e.g. literacy), the State/Region, the District and the Township, and the tool will do the rest.” And indeed, with a few clicks of the mouse she showed around the graphs her tool had generated! 

While the enthusiasm and energy among the participants were sky high, the organisers acknowledged that the task at hand could not be accomplished within a day. More time would be requires to finalise the products and test-run them. 

“This is obviously just a start and not much can be completed today,” said Yan Naung Oak of Phandemeeyar. “However, we will need to make a follow up with the developer to ensure that they finalise their products and they make them available to us,” he added. Yan Nang Oak further noted that the products need to undergo quality checks before being availed to the public. This, he said, would ensure that the products produce accurate data when utilised. 

The Census Data Hackathon was organised by Phandemeeyar Myanmar Innovation Lab as part of the commemoration of the National Day of Civic Hacking which is globally commemorated on 6 June of every year.