My Volunteer Experience - Pujan Maharjan
Welcome Pujan!
Pujan Maharjan joined our SAcommunity Data Analytics Team as a volunteer. He started with the team on the 26 July 2023 and attends for ~4 hours a week onsite at the Connecting Up Office.
We are very happy to announce that Pujan will be working as a Developer .NET/SQL in the ICT Services division at TAFE SA from January 2025, Congratulations Pujan!
Total Hours 163 This Year 105 Joined 26 July 2023 Last Check-in 10 December 2024 (retired)
Pujan Maharjan joined our SAcommunity Data Analytics Team as a volunteer. He started with the team on the 26 July 2023 and attends for ~4 hours a week onsite at the Connecting Up Office.
We are very happy to announce that Pujan will be working as a Developer .NET/SQL in the ICT Services division at TAFE SA from January 2025, Congratulations Pujan!
Total Hours 163 This Year 105 Joined 26 July 2023 Last Check-in 10 December 2024 (retired)
Image: Volunteers Pujan Maharjan and Yi Han, with Intern Kurinji, Volunteer Lam, and Interns Aaron, Jason, Mihir and Eily
Personal Biography
Image: Yi Han, Pujan and Stathis Avramis
Python coding
Currently Pujan has been working on Python coding to improve the efficiency of data retrieval from Google Analytics and cleaning for the SAcommunity program, reducing some of the manual processes. He has also set up a GitHub account for the Team. GitHub is a platform and cloud-based service for software development and version control using Git, allowing some of the SAcommunity Team members to store and manage the codes used to present reports on community services in South Australia.
Pujan was actively involved in automating data retrieval from google analytics. He worked collaboratively with other team members and assisted them to resolve some technical issues. He worked on automation of data integrity. He developed a scraping system to find the council name from more than 14,000 records in SAcommunity database. This analysis helped find the invalid addresses and invalid council names.
Relevant meetings and training sessions Pujan has attended include:
Pujan Maharjan holds a Master's degree in Masters of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at The University of Adelaide. Completing his Bachelor Degree in Computer Engineering in 2012 from the Institute of Engineering, Pulchowk, after which he worked for several years as a Software Engineer for companies in Nepal, and on remote projects for businesses based in Texas and Singapore. Pujan arrived in Adelaide in February 2022 to explore new working opportunities, and to study AI, in order to leverage technology to solve challenges and implement business efficiencies.
He joined SAcommunity as a Volunteer Information Officer in the Data Analytics Team to improve his local connections, networks and opportunities in Adelaide. Building his soft skills/people skills, by working onsite and practicing his existing communication, interpersonal and teamwork skills in a local workplace environment. Pujan immediately made himself available to represent the SAcommunity service by attending partner events, meetings and activities looking at data and digital skills in the community, held by the South Australian Council of Social Services (SACOSS) 'Keys to the Digital World', GovHack 'Connections' and the Australian Digital Inclusion Alliance (ADIA) 'Digital Capability in Australia: Unpacking digital preparedness for access to work, learning and life.'
In the future, Pujan looks forward to work in Adelaide as a Software Engineer. He is interested in building on his master's studies, further exploring the capabilities of artificial intelligence as one of the most disruptive technologies across the industry sector, and how it 'changes the way we work'. In particular, his focus is on the benefit for business, recognising the importance of AI in impacting efficiencies and pushing the boundaries of best practice, through handling repetitive tasks so that employees can concentrate on creative solutions, complex problem-solving, and impactful work.
In the future, Pujan looks forward to work in Adelaide as a Software Engineer. He is interested in building on his master's studies, further exploring the capabilities of artificial intelligence as one of the most disruptive technologies across the industry sector, and how it 'changes the way we work'. In particular, his focus is on the benefit for business, recognising the importance of AI in impacting efficiencies and pushing the boundaries of best practice, through handling repetitive tasks so that employees can concentrate on creative solutions, complex problem-solving, and impactful work.
Image: Report for sessions by Primary Category - Burnside- FY 2021-2022
Image: Report for sessions by Organisation - Burnside- FY 2021-2022
Community Services in Councils Project
Pujan has selected the City of Burnside for his council reports for 2021-2022, a database of approximately ~210 community service listings operating in the area, following up on previous reports by Sophie Hood and Stathis Avramis, which is found found >>here. The report indicates the local community service information groups and demands in Burnside.
Image: Yi Han, Pujan and Stathis Avramis
Python coding
Currently Pujan has been working on Python coding to improve the efficiency of data retrieval from Google Analytics and cleaning for the SAcommunity program, reducing some of the manual processes. He has also set up a GitHub account for the Team. GitHub is a platform and cloud-based service for software development and version control using Git, allowing some of the SAcommunity Team members to store and manage the codes used to present reports on community services in South Australia.
Pujan was actively involved in automating data retrieval from google analytics. He worked collaboratively with other team members and assisted them to resolve some technical issues. He worked on automation of data integrity. He developed a scraping system to find the council name from more than 14,000 records in SAcommunity database. This analysis helped find the invalid addresses and invalid council names.
Code:
The python code is located at the Github Url. The documentation for how to run the code is located at README.md . I have recorded a video on how to run and debug the code. The video has been uploaded to youtube and cane be accessed at url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrY6KxGtvuw
Google Analytics
Situation: SACommunity prepares reports based on Google Analytics Data. The initial approach is to download Excel data from Google Analytics UI for landing page, age, gender, source and medium. This means five different downloads. The downloaded files are manually cleaned in Excel.
Task: The task is to automate the manual data retrieval and cleaning process.
Action: I created an API in Python that calls the REST APIs of Google Analytics 4 and consolidates the data in a single Excel file.
Result: The time for manual download and consolidation of 5 files is eliminated.
Scraping
Situation: For some records in the database, the name of the council where the organisation is located is invalid.
Task: The task is to identify the invalid records where the council names are wrong.
Action: I scraped the council name from the LGA-SA website based on the address of the organisation
Result: As of November 6, 2024, there were 14,352 records in the database. I scraped the council name for all the data. Out of 14,352 records, 349 records have invalid addresses that the LGA-SA website couldn’t verify, and 1,558 records have mismatched council names.
Broken Url Check
Situation: The SA Community website contains links to the website and/or social media platform or external links. These links might be no longer valid.
Task: The task is to check if the urls mentioned in the organisations of the SA community listing are still valid.
Action: I scraped data for each organisation and checked the validity of all the URLs mentioned on that page.
Result: In my initial experiment on November 6, 2024, for the organisations listed in the Burnside council, there was a total of 216 web pages that consisted of 4,094 web urls. Out of those urls, 181 urls were not valid anymore.
Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment
As of November 6, 2024, I am experimenting with the CI/CD pipeline using Docker, GitHub Actions, AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform and Hashicorp Cloud Platform. The workflow is based on the forked repository: data-analytics-sa-community
The workflow is triggered by the GitHub Actions during pull requests and merges to the main branch.
When the developer creates a Pull Request, the terraform plan for the infrastructure is created by the GitHub Actions workflow (terraform-plan.yml). The terraform code is run in the Hashicorp Cloud Platform.
When the pull request is merged to the main branch, the infrastructure is created/updated in the Kubernetes cluster in AWS. The workflow is located at terraform-apply.yml
At the same time when the pull request is merged to the main branch, a new docker image is created in the docker registry, data-analytics-sa-community. A new git tag creates the docker image with the ‘latest’ tag.
Image: Connecting Up Monthly Meeting
Work experience - Internal and External Events, Connections and Networks
Volunteers and interns are encouraged to attend monthly SAcommunity Team meetings, Connecting Up staff meetings, as well as quarterly all-staff Infoxchange Town Hall meetings to understand more about the organisation as a whole.
Organisation-wide news, events and projects are communicated through the staff channels, with weekly CEO Updates from David Spriggs. Informal 'Lunch and Learn' educational sessions, and network meetings create connections with staff. Whilst peer-to-peer training or capacity building and telephone techniques training allow for networking with other volunteers.
Interns are also given opportunities to attend stakeholder and partner events as they arise.
Organisation-wide news, events and projects are communicated through the staff channels, with weekly CEO Updates from David Spriggs. Informal 'Lunch and Learn' educational sessions, and network meetings create connections with staff. Whilst peer-to-peer training or capacity building and telephone techniques training allow for networking with other volunteers.
Interns are also given opportunities to attend stakeholder and partner events as they arise.
Relevant meetings and training sessions Pujan has attended include:
Image: Harsh Bhatt and Pujan Maharjan practicing Telephone techniques
Training - Telephone Techniques
All Volunteers and Interns undertake Telephone Techniques Training led by Volunteer David Webb. The team are providing with a scripted template covering the processes used to greet and introduce yourself to a client or stakeholder, word choices to use, your tone of voice, call to action and call closure. Strong communication skills are highly valued in any workplace or industry, and the Data Analytics Team members use this to check, update and improve the records in their dataset by contacting community service organisations, and to introduce their data reports to council stakeholders.
Image: 'Keys to the digital world' - references on the SACOSS Website and LGA Website
Building Connections and Networks
SAcommunity Team members are also encouraged to participate in partner and stakeholder activities, events and meetings as they arise to understand more about the wider organisation's projects and the work they are involved in and support.
Pas Forgione, Digital Inclusion Project Officer for the South Australian Council of Social Services (SACOSS) invited Connecting Up staff and volunteers to attend the 'Keys to the Digital World' reference group meetings to build digital inclusion, in lieu of Connecting Up's capacity as a charity providing low-cost tech products and training to other not-for-profits.
Volunteer Pujan took up the opportunity for the third meeting held 27 July 2023 and attended online along with community stakeholders including, public library services (PLS), local councils and community centre staff members who met to hear and discuss the results of Pas's regional consultations, interviews and draft report, listening and providing feedback on the commentary, themes and recommendations. Pujan then presented a short summary at the SAcommunity Team meeting to keep other volunteers informed ahead of the next session, explaining how the digital literacy issues raised were universal with similar challenges experienced in Nepal.
Training - Telephone Techniques
All Volunteers and Interns undertake Telephone Techniques Training led by Volunteer David Webb. The team are providing with a scripted template covering the processes used to greet and introduce yourself to a client or stakeholder, word choices to use, your tone of voice, call to action and call closure. Strong communication skills are highly valued in any workplace or industry, and the Data Analytics Team members use this to check, update and improve the records in their dataset by contacting community service organisations, and to introduce their data reports to council stakeholders.
Image: 'Keys to the digital world' - references on the SACOSS Website and LGA Website
Building Connections and Networks
SAcommunity Team members are also encouraged to participate in partner and stakeholder activities, events and meetings as they arise to understand more about the wider organisation's projects and the work they are involved in and support.
Pas Forgione, Digital Inclusion Project Officer for the South Australian Council of Social Services (SACOSS) invited Connecting Up staff and volunteers to attend the 'Keys to the Digital World' reference group meetings to build digital inclusion, in lieu of Connecting Up's capacity as a charity providing low-cost tech products and training to other not-for-profits.
Volunteer Pujan took up the opportunity for the third meeting held 27 July 2023 and attended online along with community stakeholders including, public library services (PLS), local councils and community centre staff members who met to hear and discuss the results of Pas's regional consultations, interviews and draft report, listening and providing feedback on the commentary, themes and recommendations. Pujan then presented a short summary at the SAcommunity Team meeting to keep other volunteers informed ahead of the next session, explaining how the digital literacy issues raised were universal with similar challenges experienced in Nepal.
GovHack Connections Event 9 August 2023 - Volunteers Pujan Maharjan, Camille Sze Pui Ko, Navodani Thennakoon, Frank Xiufeng Shi, Stathis Avramis and Govinda Gurung
GovHack is an annual Open Data competition held this year on the 18-20 August 2023 across Australia and New Zealand. SAcommunity has attended and supported the event for several years providing the SAcommunity open data set for competitors, promotion and data mentors and a few of our volunteers have also participated in the hackathon.
The GovHack Connections event held on the 9 August 2023 is an information night to find out more about the competition, create teams and understand what takes place of the weekend and we invited members of the Data Analytics Team to attend and meet their peers and other industry professionals interested in the innovative re-use of data (photo above).
State of the NFP Sector: Infoxchange’s 2023 Digital Technology Report Launch 1 December 2023
Pujan also attended the Launch of the 2023 Digital Technology in the Not-For-Profit Sector Report. This was a discussion of the report findings from a survey of more than 1,000 not-for-profit organisations across Australia and New Zealand. Contributors who have helped build the most detailed view of the state of digital technology in the not-for-profit sector, providing opportunities to strengthen this across fields including multifactor authentication and cyber security improvement, decision-making with data and with a digital tranformation strategy.
The Data Catalyst Network (DCN) is made up of close to 50 organisations working with data from the not-for-profit community sector. The Data Catalyst Network brings together people from across sectors, to break cycles of disadvantage through the innovative use of data. DCN is a partnership between Infoxchange and the Paul Ramsay Foundation. Volunteers and Interns have the opportunity to attend these stakeholder meetings.
Pujan attended the following:
DCN Meetup - Using linked data to support transitions to school - 30 October 2024
The Australian Digital Inclusion Alliance (ADIA) is a shared initiative with over 500 business, government, academic and community organisations working together to accelerate action on digital inclusion. ADIA is supported by Infoxchange, Google, Telstra and TasNetworks. Volunteers and Interns have the opportunity to attend these stakeholder meetings.
Pujan attended the following:
ADIA Meetup - Economic Benefits of Overcoming Digital Exclusion: A deep dive into Good Things Australia’s latest report 31 October 2024
Image: 2024 Digital Technology in NFP report
Image: National Volunteer Week
Image: Farewell Interns
Pujan utilised his software engineering skills to improve data processes and community reports. He has automated tasks like Google Analytics data retrieval, error detection in databses and web scraping. In addition, he contributed in CI/CD pipelines using Terraform, Kubernetes, Haschicorp Cloud Platform and Github Actions. He actively partcipates in professional events and trainings, emphasizing AI and data's role in enhancing efficiency and decision-making.
