Adelaide University Internship Experience - Harsh Bhatt

Welcome Harsh!
Harsh Bhatt joined our SAcommunity Data Analytics Team for his University of Adelaide SET (Sciences, Engineering and Technology) Internship for his Masters of Computer Science Trimester 1, 2024: 23 January 2024 - 23 June 2024.

He completed a 280 hour internship onsite with SAcommunity at the Connecting Up Office, Infoxchange for 3 days (22.5 hours) a week for ~14 weeks around his classes finishing his internship on the 10 May 2024.  

We were fortunate to have Harsh return to our organisation as a volunteer on the 2 July 2024 after graduating. Assisting the organisation and taking on the Overall Data Analytics Lead role for 4 hours once a week over July, August and September whilst current Data Analytics Lead Stathis Avramis is on leave, to assist new volunteers while he searches for work or a graduate opportunity in the data analytics field. Thank you for your help Harsh!

Total Hours 339 Joined 23 January 2024 Last Check-in 1 October 2024 

Induction Day 13 August 2024
Former Interns now Volunteers: Harsh (Data Lead) along with assistants Olivia, Mostafa, Anju and Volunteer Alice and Anubhav (not pictured) help with the new group of volunteers and interns.

Personal Biography
Harsh completed his Masters of Computer Science at The University of Adelaide in 2024, following his Bachelors in Computer Engineering at SVIT in India and discovering that he has interests in data and other similar fields. He has previous intern experience in Data Analysis and has interests in Machine Learning. During University breaks he provides soccer coaching for kids and volunteers for the University School Holiday Program organized by The University of Adelaide.

He is currently working on is his research project using Segment Anything Model (SAM), a Segmentation Model from META, and combining it with YOLOv8, a model used for object detection, tracking and object counting in an image or video file. He is also Interning at Connecting Up where he aims to gain practical and real-world experience, and to leverage his skills, and acquired knowledge to land a job in his desired field. 

In the future following his key interests in Data, he aims to work as a Data Specialist. He also plans to combine his interests in Data and soccer working  as a Performance Analyst assisting the team by reviewing statistics of an individual athlete to provide further insights on the game.



Community Services in Councils Project
Harsh has selected The City of Salisbury for his Power BI council reports, a database of approximately 551 community services operating in the area for the financial years 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. His reports followed previous visualisation report work by Stathis Avramis, and his completed reports can be found >>here.

There are a number of steps involved in the creation of community service information data presentations. A summary of data trends prepared, using information from Google Analytics and SAcommunity with subsequent Power BI and Canva reports revealing data anomalies and corrections required, the database is updated and reports re-created with improved information. Final data reports are published to the website, and introduced by Harsh to Salisbury council stakeholders for information and/or feedback on 28 February 2024 and were followed up on 6 March 2024.

Harsh also selected the District Council of Karoonda East Murray following up on Jordana's previous work with the council, and his completed reports can be found >>here.


Harsh Bhatt demonstrating his dashboard to Intern Yi Han (left) and Volunteer Frank Xiufeng Shi (right)

Python Coding
Some of the key projects/tasks Harsh undertook towards this project are outlined below:
Harsh worked with fellow intern Violet Zewei You as they initiated their own project to make this process more efficient and effective for the team, by using Python script for automating the retrieval of landing page session data from Google Analytics Universal and making this available in GitHub. 

Council Contact
Harsh contacted Salisbury Council on the 28 February 2024 and followed up on 6 March 2024 by email and by phone to raise awareness of the SAcommunity service with potential stakeholders, that is council staff working in community consultation or community development areas, to present his publicly available data reports which can be used as another tool to understand their community needs in the area. 

Dashboard Project
Harsh also independently created a dashboard summary of all preceeding four years of community service information in Salisbury for comparison (above). He then produced a capacity building video for his peers on 20 March 2024 using Camtasia and provided a Power BI template to assist other volunteers and interns in the Data Analytics Team to re-create this dashboard for their council projects.  

Microsoft Pro Account
Harsh also introduced and summarised some of the benefits of the Microsoft Pro licence for Data Analytics Team members to assist them in their learning journey available >>here

Connecting Up Monthly Meeting 12 March 2024

Work experience - Internal and External Events, Connections and Networks

Relevant meetings and training sessions Harsh has attended include:

Image: Harsh with Volunteer Pujan Maharjan practicing Telephone Techniques scenarios

Training and Development - Telephone Techniques

Telephone techniques follow on with email and communication techniques, to assist Data Analytics Team members with understanding more about the directory and data collection methods, in data cleaning and updating their individual dataset information, and, in finally introducing and presenting their data reports to council stakeholders. There are several telephone techniques meetings, as with the student's elevator pitches, practice makes perfect.

Connecting Up Monthly Staff Meetings

13 February 2024
Introduction to Jo Davies the COO of Infoxchange

Attending the Connecting Up Monthly Staff Meeting led by Jo Davies, the Chief Operating Officer at Infoxchange, was an enlightening experience that offered valuable insights into the organization's operational landscape. It was interesting hearing about her extensive professional background, particularly her tenure at Fujitsu Australia and how this applies to her role within Infoxchange.
 

Throughout the meeting, Ms Davies dedication to executing the company's business plan was noticeable. Her focus on daily business operations and close collaboration with department heads highlighted the importance of alignment and synergy across the organization. The agenda, centered on team engagement and future, reflected her commitment to fostering a culture of collaboration and driving organizational growth.

 

One notable aspect of the meeting was Ms Davies positive reinforcement regarding the performance of the Adelaide office. Her recognition of the team's hard work not only boosted morale but also reinforced a culture of appreciation and acknowledgment within the organization.

 

Throughout the meeting, she maintained a professional yet approachable demeanor, encouraging open dialogue and active participation among team members. I admired her ability to seamlessly navigate between strategic discussions and operational updates demonstrated her adeptness in balancing short-term objectives with long-term goals.

 

Overall, the meeting with Ms Davies provided valuable insights into Infoxchange's operational dynamics and strategic direction. Her leadership style, characterized by a focus on collaboration and performance, set a positive tone for the organization's future endeavors.

Connecting Up Meeting 13 August 2024 with Kylie Love, Acting Chief People Officer 

CU Meeting 12 March 2024 & 9 April 2024 (internship) 13 August 2024 (Volunteer)
Updates from the Connecting Up Team includes monthly highlights, plans, activities



Infoxchange (IX) All Staff Town Hall Meeting 27 February 2024
Updates from the Infoxchange CEO, Operations, Finance, People & Culture, Lightning Talks from IX Teams, & IXcel Awards
 

This meeting started with different departments like finance, operations etc. updating the staff about the current projects and the company's future. After speeches from the CEO and other team leads, the individuals with excellent performances were rewarded with the IXcel awards. This meeting was especially important for me as it firstly inspired me to pursue my tasks in search of excellence and secondly this was a great opportunity for better understanding the company's workplace culture and leadership structure. This greatly expanded my understanding of how a company operates and how different roles working independently eventually all tie up together to keep the company moving forward.

IX Lunch & Learn Sessions

Effective Meeting & Communication Skills 5 March 2024

Kate Hickman Chief People Officer Infoxchange & Jo Davies Chief Operating Officer Infoxchange to learn more and how to implement these skills in your day-to-day work activities.

This lunch and learning meeting highlighted the importance of effective communication and how correctly communicating can benefit individuals. We discussed different ways of effective meeting and communication skills which included phone calls, texts, emails and face to face meetings. The key takeaways for me from this meeting were having a clear and definite purpose and agenda before any meeting, this will help the parties involved better prepare and thus leading to a precise and detailed discussion. I also learned the importance of planning and keeping track of things going forward and how this will benefit us in the future.

Surplus for Purpose - Tomer Ginel - Chief Financial Officer 16 April 2024 This informal professional development session enabled participants to learn how understanding finance can help us deliver sustainable impact at scale, as well as what is important for everyone to know about finance within their organisation.

Interns Violet Zewei You, Harsh Bhatt and Volunteer Kane Hengchuan Zhao looking at the Data Analytics Python program
IX Community & Cultural Events & Activities

International Women's Day Afternoon Tea and Talk 13 March 2024
Jo Davies Chief Operating Officer Infoxchange & David Spriggs CEO Infoxchange 

This event highlighted the extremely captivating and inspiring journeys of different renowned women that work for Infoxchange. The one talk that stuck to me the most was from the COO Jo Davies. She talks about her career journey and how she started in the UK and now eventually she became the COO at Infoxchange. As an international student, I found her journey especially motivating as it proves that despite the cultural differences and the with resolution, motivation and correct decisions at the right time, anyone can be successful despite the hardships in one’s life.  
World Autism Month Key Speaker Jim Mullan CEO of Amaze 5 April 2024 An informative talk on Amaze, World Autism Month, Autistic inclusion in the workplace. Amaze is known for building autism understanding in the community, influencing policy change for Autistic people and their families / supporters, and providing independent, credible information and resources to individuals, families, professionals, government, and the wider community.

IX Stakeholder Events
Data Catalyst Network (DCN): Brings together people from across sectors, to break cycles of disadvantage through the innovative use of data.

Participants of the Data Catalyst Network will advance their data maturity while sharing and improving data insights through unique cross-sector partnerships to disrupt disadvantage. As a collective, the network will harness data and knowledge from the not-for-profit community sector, academia, government and business to better use and manage data to improve the lives of people across Australia. 

DCN: Augmented Intelligence; Combining Organisation Data with Large Language Models 29 February 2024
Associate Professor Amir Aryani, Head of the Social Data Analytics Lab at Swinburne University presented this Data Catalyst Network Webinar/ meeting on Augmented Intelligence and talked about large language models and his perspective on the rise of Generative AI.

The talk starts by diving into the potential of integrating Large Language Models into the business. He then explained the potential benefits of the involvement of AI in business. But then he explained the potential risks of sending the companies official documents and data sheets to Generative AI public web server, which is easily accessible by many potential attackers. He also added that companies need dedicated staff to bridge the merger of business and Generative AI.

Another potential threat is that of AI Hallucination. They are basically incorrect or misleading results that are generated from these Generative AI model and then explained that how such an error can have devastating repercussions to business. Hence to deal with this problem in hand, he proposes Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). RAG is a process of retrieving relevant document chunks from external knowledge base to optimize the results of a large language model. With RAG, companies can get more focused and dedicated responses from large language models and provide the necessary security keeping the enterprise data safe.

Overall, I believe this talk from Professor Amir improved my understanding of the challenges and risks to integrating Generative AI Models into business. It also provides a solution to some of the existing problems, although still not proved that the use of RAG will solve all the problems, but it is one of the potential solutions that the companies can look up.
 

DCN: Indigenous Data Sovereignty 20 March 2024
Jim O’Shea Gumbaynggirr man from New South Wales and Chief Operating Officer at VACCHO, Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organization Inc presented this webinar. Indigenous Data refers to information and knowledge, in any format or medium, which is about/affects Indigenous people both collectively and individually. Whereas Indigenous Data Sovereignty refers to the right of Indigenous people over this data.

Mr O'Shea then discussed the different frameworks and principles that each organization must take into consideration for the development of Indigenous Data Sovereignty. He also highlighted the challenges that these communities face in the use of their data. Overall, this talk was an eye opener for a new area which every organization must follow and how proactively implementing these steps for Indigenous Data Sovereignty can benefit different communities. 

DCN: Tools to get control of your data 24 April 2024
The Benevolent Society & Microsoft talk about Fabric

"Data Architect, Marcello Sequiera talk about The Benevolent Society’s decision to adopt MS Fabric and learn from Microsoft Data Dngineer, Benny Austin as he demonstrates Fabric in action.

 

NFPs need to measure and demonstrate impact effectively for multiple audiences – management, Board, funding bodies, donors, etc. Among the impediments to being able to do this is fragmented data systems – lots of spreadsheets and different programs to collect, analyse and visualize. Bringing data into a ‘single source of truth’ is important, as is ensuring the data is complete, accurate and clean. Microsoft Fabric allows users to do this and incorporates secure AI through Copilot."

 

Interns Anju Odedara and Harsh Bhatt with Kristen Moeller-Saxone Data Capability Lead, Infoxchange

Connecting Up Volunteers and Interns are provided with the opportunity to select staff members from across the wider Infoxchange organisation for an informational mentor meeting. Here they have the opportunity to ask more about staff members job roles and employment journey, and learn about their career and professional development, to gain insights and guidance that can be applied towards their own success. 

Volunteers and interns both prepare 5 questions for their mentors and then are encouraged to record 5 aspects they felt were helpful for them to share on their portfolio for both themselves and other volunteers, and Harsh shared his experience in meeting Kristen Moeller-Saxone Data Capability Lead, Infoxchange.

 

Meeting Kristen Moeller Saxone was truly enlightening, providing me with invaluable insights into the world of data science and its real-world applications. Her role as a Data Capability Lead at Infoxchange immediately established her as an expert in the field, blending theoretical knowledge with practical experience seamlessly.

 

Throughout our conversation, I admired her fluent explanations and thoughtful responses highlighted her deep understanding of the complexities within the data landscape. Her approach to addressing data-related challenges, particularly regarding access, security, and ethics, emphasized the importance of effective communication and collaboration across various stakeholders. Her role as a liaison between organizations and data professionals highlighted the critical link between data availability and actionable insights.

 

One standout aspect of our discussion was her outlook on the future of data and emerging technologies. Her belief in the continued growth of roles such as data analysis, business analysis, and data engineering echoed the rapid advancements in technology and data-driven decision-making. Moreover, her emphasis on adaptability and flexibility underscored the necessity for professionals to evolve alongside the ever-changing data landscape.

 

Her enthusiasm for future technologies, especially robotics and artificial intelligence, infused our conversation with excitement. Her practical experience in robotics and interest in AI demonstrated a forward-thinking mindset grounded in a comprehensive understanding of these technologies' current state. Overall, my meeting with Kristen Moeller Saxone left an impression, equipping me with valuable insights and inspiration to navigate the dynamic field of data science and technology.

 

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 Harsh to look at how these sessions can enhance his internship experience have included:

A Practical Introduction to Power BI
The not-for-profit sector is under constant pressure to do more with less resources, funding has been reduced and government services have been shifted to the NFP sector. In addition, the traditional sources of funding are shifting and stakeholders (government and investors) want to see the impact of their investments.

Power BI can be used as a tool to help with visualizing an organisation's productivity and results, making it easier for everyone in the organisation to look at, analyse, and comment on the work done. The Data Refresh Rate means we can also include real time streaming data, as well as access data in a large dataset, and ask questions in natural language, with the system able to provide insights based on our questions.

Power BI is also not strictly bound to any particular platform, as part of the Office365 suite it can be worked on from laptops, mobiles, tablets. One of the more interesting things I found about Power BI is that it can also support datasets in different formats like csv, excel, etc. These datasets can be combined,  worked on individually, or operated on together by linking the datasets, providing a powerful tool for analysis. 


Data reporting, business intelligence and outcomes to enhance services
This webinar started with providing the technologies that Infoxchange offers to transform any NFP organisations including: Case studies, digital guides, training resources, expert advice, etc. It then explained the 5 key domains of any organisation: 1. Tech Foundations, 2. Information Systems, 3. Digital Marketing, 4. IT Management, 5. Cybersecurity.

I found it of interest to see how the tone of the webinar shifted towards how we can make the most use of data. They then started demystifying data science and the core talents of any data projects. The core talents of the data projects being: 1. Project management 2. Data wrangling 3. Data analysis 4. Subject expertise 5. Design 6. Storytelling.

The webinar covered the different sources the data comes from in any NFPs and how to use the data more effectively and efficiently. It was useful to see how they explained how the use of data can be divided into 4 different parts, 1. Learn + Optimise: Here we do all the predictive analysis to target the CRM  2. Report + Visualise: We create an insightful report that captures what story the suthor is trying to convey 3. Process + Explore: In this step they talked about the different approaches that we can take to solve a particular problem and finally 4. Collect + Store: Getting the data from different data sources. They ended this webinar by demonstrating the efficiency and effectiveness of Power BI and how easily we can create insights with both Power BI and Tableau.

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) with Microsoft: Protecting Sensitive Data
Harsh Alpesh Bhatt Certificate of Completion >>here
In today's digital landscape, safeguarding sensitive data is paramount for any organization. Microsoft's Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions offer a robust set of tools and services to address this challenge effectively, and it was interesting to find out more about this area.

Overall, Microsoft's DLP solutions provide a comprehensive approach to protecting sensitive data, empowering organizations to comply with regulations and safeguard their most valuable information assets. 


 

Interns: Harsh, Violet Zewei You, Volunteer Rex Porter, Intern Yi Han, Head of Connecting Up Pankaj Chhalotre and Intern Anju Odedara

During my internship with SAcommunity's Data Analytics Team from January 23 to April 26, 2024, I gained valuable skills and insights. Working on the Salisbury council project using Power BI was particularly impactful, allowing me to apply theoretical knowledge to real-world scenarios and contribute to community service data analysis.

Engaging in stakeholder events like the Data Catalyst Network webinars exposed me to emerging trends like augmented intelligence and deepened my understanding of data ethics. Training sessions organized by Connecting Up further honed my data management and analytics expertise, covering tools like Power BI, Excel, Google Analytics, and IT management.

Mentorship from Kristen Moeller-Saxone, Infoxchange's Data Capability Lead, provided invaluable guidance. Overall, this internship has equipped me with the confidence and skills to pursue a career as a data analyst, ready to make meaningful contributions to organizations aiming for data-driven decision-making and positive social impact.