• Best City in the World Contest 2012

    Know where the best city in the world to live is? Prove it and win $10,000.

    The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and BuzzData want you to tell us where the best city in the world is – and prove it with data and a visualization.

    What makes a city good to live in? To get your creative and analytical juices flowing, we’re sharing with you the EIU’s opinion – check out the EIU’s renowned liveability index for 140 cities on BuzzData. We’re also sharing the EIU’s cost of living index for the same cities so you’ve got some hard data on the relative prices of some of the important things in life.

    But are we considering the right factors? Are there others? What data is missing from our evaluation? Show us and you could win $10,000.

    Challenge & Judging Criteria

    The EIU has made available two datasets on BuzzData:

    1. The EIU’s renowned “liveability” index for 140 cities around the world
    2. Its “cost of living” index for the same cities.

    Your mission: to create a new “liveability” index, using the 140 cities in the EIU’s datasets, that determines which is the best city in the world to live in, using these datasets PLUS any additional publicly available data sources that you wish to use (note: see the Contest Rules for information on using additional data). You are also required to create a visualization of the new index that you’ve created.

    By way of guidance, the judging panel will be scoring submissions based on criteria including (but not limited to):

    Once we’ve selected a shortlist from all the submissions, we’ll open it up to the public: people will be able to vote as to their preferred submission on the shortlist and how they vote will be considered by the judging panel.

    How To Enter

    First, read the Contest Rules. By participating in this contest, you agree to be bound by these rules. We also suggest that you bookmark this page and the Contest Rules page for future reference; please check back from time to time for any updates.

    Now check out our simple contest guide video that takes you through the following submission steps:

    1. Log in or sign up to BuzzData to download the two EIU datasets.
    2. Create a new dataset and name it in the format: “Best City Contest - < First Name > < Last Name >.”

      a. Upload your new dataset to BuzzData, making it “Private”. See BuzzData Help for guidance on doing this.

      b. Add the topic “Best City Contest” to the dataset (mandatory) and start to follow this topic (optional but we recommend it).

    3. Build your project on BuzzData - work on your dataset offline (e.g. mash it up with other, publicly-available data) and re-upload to take advantage of BuzzData’s excellent version control as you get it ready for submission.
    4. Produce a visualization of your dataset, using your visualization tool of choice, and associate it with your dataset. See BuzzData Help for guidance on adding visualizations to datasets.
    5. Create a document (PDF, Word or Pages document) that clearly identifies the best city and explains your approach and the value in your index (e.g. why you’ve weighted it as you have) (max 1,000 words). Upload it as an attachment to the dataset.
    6. When your dataset, visualization and document are ready for submission:

      a. Make the dataset “Public”. See BuzzData Help for guidance on doing this.

      b. Invite the user “BuzzJudge” to become a collaborator on your dataset. This will confirm your submission.

    7. All submissions (that have invited BuzzJudge as a collaborator) will be considered final at 11:59pm (PST) on March 4, 2012. Any subsequent updates to datasets will not be accepted as part of the submission.
    8. Drum up support for your submission by Tweeting about it, Liking it on Facebook, +1-ing on Google+, showcasing it on your blog or website using BuzzData’s badges, etc.

    If you need help using BuzzData during the contest, please refer to BuzzData Help or contact us at contest@buzzdata.com.

    Discussion Groups & Social Media

    To participate in discussions about the contest, be sure to check out the discussion on the “Best City Contest” topic on BuzzData.

    Stay up-to-date with the contest by connecting with BuzzData on:

    Also use the hashtag #BestCityContest to participate in the conversation on Twitter.

    Judging Panel

    A panel of data and visualization experts will judge the contest:

    Charles Barber – Charles is Marketing Director, Digital Brand Strategy at the Economist Intelligence Unit. He manages a global team generating prospects for the business through PR, social media and search marketing strategies.

    Prior to working at the Economist Intelligence Unit Charles was Head of Online Communities at LexisNexis. In this role he worked across a portfolio of B2B business titles taking them from print only to the online world and the adoption of numerous social media platforms to create more value from the editorial content. He also had editorial and marketing responsibility for a portfolio of newsletters for various practice areas within the legal profession. Charles has an LLB Law from the University of Edinburgh and the Chartered Institute of Marketing Diploma in Marketing.

    Jon Copestake – Jon is the Editor of the Worldwide Cost of Living and Liveability surveys, with over a decade of experience working on both products.

    He also oversees a number of custom projects related to liveability and pricing. As the Economist Intelligence Unit's chief consumer goods analyst, Jon writes the global outlook for the retail, consumer goods, food, beverages and tobacco sectors as well as monitoring reports for individual countries.

    The high profile of cost of living and liveability surveys mean that Jon is frequently interviewed by the media.

    David Eaves – A public policy entrepreneur, open government activist and negotiation expert David is retained by several governments to advise on open government and open data, works with two spin-offs of the Harvard Negotiation Project and advises businesses on open source strategies and community management (see http://eaves.ca for more information).

    Hilary Mason – Hilary is the Chief Scientist at bit.ly, where she finds sense in vast data sets. Her work involves both pure research and development of product-focused features. She’s also a co-founder of HackNY (hackny.org), a non-profit organization that connects talented student hackers from around the world with startups in NYC. Hilary recently started the data science blog Dataists (dataists.com) and is a member of hacker collective NYC Resistor.

    Nathan Yau – Nathan runs FlowingData, a site on design, visualization, and statistics and is the author of Visualize This. In a previous life he was an electrical engineering and computer science student at Berkeley, but now he’s a UCLA PhD candidate in statistics with a focus in data visualization.

    The decision of the panel will be final. The panel will consider, but not be bound by, the results of the community’s voting on the shortlist.

    The EIU, BuzzData or the judging panel will unfortunately not be able to provide feedback on a particular submission, so please don’t ask for it.

    Contest Timetable

    Note: the contest organizers reserve the right to make changes to the timetable; changes will be communicated via this page and other channels, so please check back regularly. The contest submission deadline (4th March, 2012) is, however, fixed.

    Prize & Notification

    The contest winner will be notified via email and will conditionally receive a prize of $10,000 (USD) in accordance with the Contest Rules. There will be no additional prizes (e.g. no prize for second place).

    Frequently Asked Questions

    We will update the FAQs throughout the contest as we receive questions so be sure to check back here regularly. Please also refer to BuzzData Help for guidance on using BuzzData. You can contact us at contest@buzzdata.com if you have any questions.

    Q1: Do you have to use the EIU’s data in some form or other?

    A1: Yes. But we’re definitely interested in seeing what data you think needs to be included over and above what the EIU has considered (e.g. more data on the relative weather of cities or how “green” cities are). Note the Contest Rules relating to use of non-EIU provided data – it must be publicly available and, if there are license conditions associated with it as determined by the original data publisher, these must be consistent with the use and purpose to which the EIU and BuzzData may wish to employ the data as detailed in the Contest Rules.

    Q2: Can you include in your index or have as the best city in your submission a city that is not on the EIU’s list of 140?

    A2: No – but you don’t have to use all of the 140 cities in your new index if you don’t want to (e.g. because you can’t get the relevant data on all of them). However, you need to include a minimum of 70 of the 140 cities in your new index and for your submission to be considered as a viable index.