Adelaide University Internship - Joe Xuanqiao Zhang
Welcome Joe!
Joe Xuanqiao Zhang joined our SAcommunity Data Analytics Team for his University of Adelaide SET (Sciences, Engineering and Technology) Internship for his Masters of Computer Science 2024 Semester 1: 22 March 2024 - 4 June 2024.
He is completing a 140 hour internship onsite with SAcommunity at the Connecting Up Office, Infoxchange for 2 days (15 hours) a week for ~10 weeks around his classes.
Total Hours 82 Joined 22 March 2024 Last Check-in 7 May 2024
Personal Biography
Joe Xuanqiao Zhang is in his second year of his Masters of Computer Science at the University of Adelaide. He has a Bachelor of Automation Engineering from the China University of Petroleum, and worked as a Java software development engineer at the Xi'an Zhiwenchen Software Co. Ltd. Here he utilised Java programming language, Java collection frameworks, databases including MySQL, Redis, MongoDB, Linux operating systems, Java Libraries such as ECharts, POI and API platform Postman, prior to moving to Australia in 2023, to pursue his interests in software engineering and data analytics.
His aim as a Intern Information Officer is to gain hands-on experience in programming and data analysis, applying the knowledge he has learnt at university. Along with the ability to practice and showcase the professional skills he aquired from his previous software development engineer role. He also plans to improve his communication skills, by working across a range of staff, peers and clients, and practice these within his new workplace at Connecting Up.
Ultimately, Joe Xuanqiao Zhang plans to continue pursuing a career in data analytics, and machine learning. To both discover more about the areas he loves, and to allow him to follow their development in the context of the AI wave. With their wide applications, both fields open up a number of potential work prospects in the near future.
Councils Project for Community Services
Joe has selected Port Pirie Reginal Council for his Power BI council reports, a databse of approximately 240 community services operating in the area for the financial years 2020-2021, 2021-2022, and 2022-2023. Her reports followed previous data provided by Stathis Avramis, and her completed reports can be found here.
The process of creating community service information data presentations involves several steps. Data trends are summarized by utilizing information from Google Analytics and SAcommunity. Subsequently, Power BI and Canva reports are generated, which may reveal data anomalies and the need for corrections. The database is then updated with improved information, and the reports are recreated. The final data reports are published on the website and introduced by Tanvi to council stakeholders for their information and feedback.
Telephone Techniques: Intern Harsh Bhatt with Intern Joe Xuanqiao Zhang
Telephone Techniques
All interns and volunteers receive telephony training, as skilled telephony and telephone etiquette are important to all SAcommunity team members. Telephone technology helps data analysis team members learn more about the catalog and data collection methods, data cleanse and update their individual dataset information, and ultimately present and present their data reports to council stakeholders.
Image: IX Lunch & Learn: World Autism Month with Key Speaker: Jim Mullan, CEO at Amaze
Infoxchange (IX) Meeting - People & Culture - Lunch & Learn Sessions
Joe attended an informative presentation on Amaze by Amaze CEO Jim Mullan. His presentation focused on the Amaze initiative, World Autism Month, and the importance of autism inclusion in the workplace. Amaze is known for its efforts to promote autism awareness, advocate for policy changes that benefit individuals with autism and their families, and provide reliable information and resources to stakeholders including families, professionals, governments, and the broader community.
Digital Training & Development
Volunteers and interns have access to the Connecting Up Digital Learning Platform providing live webinars and recorded webinars, workshops and webcons presented by subject-matter experts to understand more about a range of technology topics for the not-for-profit sector.
Relevant training sessions were selected, attended, summarised and assessed by Joe to look at how these sessions can enhance his internship experience have included:
Webinar 1: A practical introduction to Power BI
In this webinar, Joe gained invaluable knowledge on how to improve the efficiency of data management and demonstrate the effectiveness of his work at a nonprofit organisation through Microsoft PowerBI. Through the session, he gained a basic understanding of PowerBI, including its capabilities and how to apply it in his organisation.
In addition, Joe learned how to access different data sources and integrate them with PowerBI to enhance data analysis. He learned how to link data to PowerBI, how to generate data visualizations, and how to develop dashboards that are effective in monitoring and reporting on service delivery.
Inspired by the webinar, Markus Harvey demonstrated through real-life examples how technology can help non-profit organisations improve efficiency and clearly communicate their social impact. Joe plans to apply this new knowledge to his daily work to help his organisation stand out in a competitive funding environment.
Image: Joe and Data Analytics Team
