Tag: GatherIQ

Day 5 at SAS!

Unfortunately, I could not attend the SAS work experience on day 4. However, on day 5, I caught up with my group. We were tasked to come up with a video campaign that will spread awareness about the unfortunate lack of access in many areas of the world, while focusing on the global goal.

Targets of the Global Goal: 

6.1 – Provide safe and affordable drinking water  

        • Improve access to safe water 

6.3 – Improve the quality, treatment, and reuse of water 

        • Reduce pollution 
        • Eliminate dumping waste 
        • Minimize the release of chemicals into the water 
        • Increase recycling of water 

6.4 – Increase efficiency and supplies 

        • Ensure sustainable withdrawals of water 
        • Address the scarcity of water in some countries 

6.5 – Water resource management 

        • Managing water sources and keeping them clean and healthy 

My partners, Alyssa Thompson, Erin Singleton, and Anna Cheng, and I came up with the “Every Drop Challenge” in which 2 people see how well they can hold around 40 pounds of water, just like many in Africa, who have to carry this for more 4 miles at a time. We hope that this has potential to go viral with the hashtag #EveryDropMatters. We also challenged our audience to participate without wasting any clean water and donating to respective water donation companies!

Even though this video was produced in just a few days time, we hope this will inspire marketing campaigns for GatherIQ at SAS. I feel extremely fortunate to be a part of a process that could change people’s lives around the world!

Day 4 at SAS

Today is day 4 of my work experience at SAS. Instead of all of us separating into different departments, we all convened to receive a presentation by a team that worked on an app called GatherIQ. GaterIQ is an app that gives insights on some of the world’s biggest problems and help to create world change. Just by learning about the information on the app, you are able to collect coins that convert to real money and can go directly to a non-profit organization. After the presentation, we split up into groups to act as testers for the app and give some options and feedback as to the usability and interface design parts of the app.

In the evening, we split up into groups to work on individual projects. The project is about creating a video that could go viral to help create awareness of a pressing issue and change. We will finish the project on Monday and hope it will turn out as fantastic as the ice bucket challenge videos.

Day 4

Today at SAS all of the Cary Academy students got together to receive a presentation on SAS’s app GatherIQ, an app that connects the user to some of the most pressing issues in the world and gives them the ability to educate themselves while contributing to the causes. For the first half of the day, we acted as functional testers- judging the application based on appearance, functionality, and how easy it was to use. We filled out surveys and were able to communicate directly with those in charge of the product.

We ate lunch in building R, where the presentations were being held- and it was also my first day in building R, which is used primarily for research and development. It had a very nice open plan with an enormous lobby- different from other buildings we’ve seen at SAS.

After lunch, we reconvened and started our next project- the development of a video in order to spread awareness about a certain issue. We split up into three teams and began brainstorming for what we could do to help get the message “out there”. On Monday we will continue and hopefully finish this video and see what it can accomplish.

Day 4- Working With Gather IQ

Today we came to building R, one of the research and development buildings and the first thing I did was get to meet some members of the development team working to create a new SAS application. The team gave me and the other SAS interns a presentation on the development process and how there are many more than just developing and marketing a software. Then, I got to go hands-on with the GatherIQ, one of SAS’s projects in development. I was working with Matthew Schaeffer who could read at the speed of light where I could read at a normal speed, so he would always want to get ahead and I would make him go back so I could finish reading things on the website. After getting hang of the purpose of the website we submitted a survey to help SAS understand what users thought about it. I thought the purpose of the website wasn’t clear at first and it would take at least five minutes of digging to figure out what SAS was getting at. Then I had lunch in an incredible cafeteria called that took place in an open space called the atrium.

The chefs were really nice and the food was great! After lunch, then I went upstairs to a new conference room to present on ideas that I thought would make for a good app. The purpose of GatherIQ is to raise awareness on global issues by sharing information, data specifically, on social media. So, the other interns and I had to come up with ways to present the information so that a younger audience like middle schoolers would be interested in learning about the issues and would want to share them with their friends. My group came up with the idea that the user should be rewarded in some way if they view the page or share it/retweet the page/ like it. So, we thought that for every 100 retweets it would get a sponsored company would donate 10 dollars towards the cause or something along these lines. This activity was really fun and its really cool how SAS will actually use our feedback to make changes to their app going forward!

Day 5- SAS Studio (and More)

On our first day back we met up with Elliot Inman, a specialist in Data Science at SAS. Basically, his job is to analyze and present a lot of the data that clients give SAS. He led an intro into programming with SAS code, where we wrote some scripts designed to retrieve certain information from a given data set.

After lunch, we looked at some of the data in the GatherIQ app, specifically the food exports of developing markets (a stand-in term for nations due to conflicts over what countries are actually considered countries). After a brief tutorial into how SAS presents data in charts and other visual aids, we were given the task of assembling something of our own. I chose to compare the exports of Colombia with my least favorite country listed: Algeria.

~Me presenting my research (notice Cino far left)

Day 4- GatherIQ

Today was drastically different from the previous days on the SAS campus. It began very much like Tuesday, with all of the CA students who had been working in different departments meeting up in the lobby at R Building. After a slight disagreement with the receptionist over my visitors badge, we were taking up a few floors to a conference room, where we met Dee, Paul, and Mary; the leads on the GatherIQ app SAS is developing. What is GatherIQ? GatherIQ is a website with a corresponding app that allows users to gain access to various projects. These projects consist of a mission statement, or a why the project exists. This often provides context for the research contained in the project. Users can then view compilations of data in the form of podcasts, papers, data tables, charts, and other visual aids. The user can also share their findings on Twitter thanks to a built in system to see what people on social media are saying about that given subject.

After walking us through the steps required to bring  product such as this to market, including testing, usability, and QA, we took part in a feedback session for the app. Divided into groups, we were given time to navigate the app and just get on thoughts on it, without any context given by the developers. My partner, Matthew Cinoman, and I took very different views on the app. While we both agreed the interface was a tad clunky and there was information overload, Matthew couldn’t see the practical application of the app for everyday use. I, on the other hand, being involved in debate and the like, appreciated the app’s ability to conduct people with reliable data on any given issue.

One group lunch later and we were back in a conference room, however this time we were divided into two teams and given lists of questions that would help them better understand how to improve the app. For my group (Will, Jessica, and Matt), this included “what makes you want to take a survey”, “should users be able to create action items”, etc. We later had to present how we answered each question. Classy as ever, we made a power point to communicate our ideas. A main emphasis of our presentation was to give more power to the user. This not only entailed the ability to create action items, but also to more effectively sort through and choose what topics they wished to follow, allowing for a more personalized collection of projects. Additionally, we thought it would be really unique to incorporate a rewards system for how activate a user is in sharing and contributing to data, with more activity correlating with Team 1 (Kevin, Isaac, and a girl from New Jersey named Nancy) then presented their ideas on how to make the app more popular with younger audiences, such as modeling the interface off of Instagrams and being able to unlock different types/colors of graphs for the kids out there collecting data about Syrian migrants.

All in all, it a great day filled with great ideas and meaningful contributions!

~GatherIQ App homepage

~Example of project interface

~Kevin hard at work brainstorming ways to make GatherIQ more like Instagram

SAS Day 4- GatherIQ

The day was different from all the other days at SAS. Today instead of all the CA students splitting up we all met at Building R to work with a product called GatherIQ. GatherIQ is a program that uses SAS analytics to produce rich information on issues around the world. The day started with a presentation of what we would be doing today. Basically, the presentation talked about how we were going to test the product because we will not have biased opinions and we have never worked with the product before. The goal was for SAS to get information on the usability of GatherIQ. I really enjoyed testing GatherIQ because I actually got to do something hands-on. It was also cool because I was testing a product that SAS is working to refine and make better. After testing we all went to lunch for a quick break. After lunch, we went to a meeting where we were put in groups and asked to brainstorm about potential changes that could be made to improve the GatherIQ product. After brainstorming we presented to some employees in the room and were filmed so that they could show their co-workers. Overall today was a wonderful day and I am looking forward to Monday where we are going to do some more hands-on stuff with some SAS products.

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