Data at work: visualizing global issues
The World Economic Forum announced that a team of students from the School of Visual Arts in New York has won the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Councils data visualization challenge with their entry entitled Catalyzing the Global Dialogue. 
The interactive chart is posted by the WEF here, enabling you to scroll over various agenda areas and see the connections between various issues.
The chart provides an interesting form of data modeling that could be applied in a number of scenarios. Imagine a business seeking to better visualize the links between suppliers and customers, for example. Or better understanding the connections between employees across business units.
Members of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Councils are holding a series of meetings starting Monday November 29th. The 72 councils -- comprised of 700 thought leaders from academia, business, government and society -- state they will be tasked with navigating an abundance of complex information arising from increasingly complex and interconnected 21st century issues.
The goal of the data visualization competition was to address this pressing reality and assist in providing "a systemic view of both the Summit and the Global Agenda Councils themselves." The challenge was set by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with visualising.org and GE. Data for the visual issues map was drawn from a survey of World Economic Forum council members.
(Chart: Visualisation.org)
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com