Are you looking for real world data to practice your analytics skills?

Need a solid project to add to your portfolio?

We have just what you need, including another chance to win a free all-access membership to Maven!

We’ve just added a rich new data set to the Data Playground, this with time information on consumers, restaurants, and their ratings.

This data set is perfect for applying your data exploration, analysis, and visualization skills to a real world scenario, so fire up your favorite BI tools (Excel, MySQL, Power BI, Tableau, etc.) and dive in!

To go along with this release, we’re launching the Maven Restaurant Challenge and giving away a free all-access membership to the winner.

We’ll share more about the challenge details below, but first let’s talk about the data…

About the dataset

This dataset contains 5 tables, in CSV format:

• The Consumers table contains information for 138 consumers (each record represents one consumer), with fields containing details about their location, age, method of transportation, employment status, budget, and more

• The Consumer Preferences table contains the types of cuisine that each user prefers

• The Restaurants table contains information for 130 restaurants (each record represents one restaurant), with fields containing details about its location, price, types of service, and more

• The Restaurant Cuisines table contains the types of cuisine that each restaurant serves

• The Ratings table contains overall, food, and service ratings by consumers for the restaurants

How to play the Maven Restaurant Challenge

For the Maven Restaurant Challenge, you will be assuming the role of Lead Analyst at a firm that invests in new restaurant opportunities abroad. After conducting a study to learn about the restaurant market in several Mexican cities, you've been asked to analyze interesting patterns and trends in the data to help understand the market and make investment decisions.

Your task is to share a single-page visual or dashboard that outlines what you'd be looking for in a restaurant to invest in and contains the supporting data from your analysis.

Here’s how to submit your entry:

1. Share a LinkedIn post mentioning @Maven Analytics and the hashtag #mavenrestaurantchallenge, with your single page visualization based on the challenge objective above

2. Complete the official challenge submission form to make sure you are entered for a chance to win

Make sure to follow Maven Analytics on LinkedIn for updates on the challenge and invite your connections to play along!

How to win

Finalists will be chosen by a panel of previous challenge winners, Maven Hall of Famers, and the Maven team. Each panelist will name one finalist, and the winner will be selected from the finalist pool by the Maven team, via live voting.

What you can win

As part of the Maven Restaurant Challenge, we'll be giving away 1 annual all-access Maven membership completely free of charge. The winner will get access to all of our Excel, Power BI, Tableau, and SQL courses, as well as our ongoing Machine Learning series, all with direct support and coaching from our expert instructors.

No purchase is necessary to participate. As always, this challenge is open to both current Maven subscribers and everyone else.

Check out the official rules below...

Official Terms (Maven Restaurant Challenge)

• Maven Analytics will give away 1 Annual subscription for an Individual account. After the one year period, the subscriptions will expire.

• No purchase is necessary to enter.

• Data Analyst Bootcamp is not included in this prize. That is a separate offering, and not eligible

• The challenge will close to new entries on Sunday, September 26th, 2021, at 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time. All entries must be submitted prior.

• After the submission deadline, finalists will be chosen by a panel of previous challenge winners, Maven Hall of Famers, and the Maven team.

• Maven Analytics will select 1 winner from the finalists, and will announce the winner on Thurday, October 7th, 2021 at 10:00am Eastern Standard Time. The official announcement will be posted on LinkedIn from the Maven Analytics LinkedIn account.

Don't want to participate in the Maven Restaurant Challenge? No problem. You can still analyze the data on your own. All of the Data Playground datasets are completely free and are available for everyone to learn with. Feel free to dig in anytime.

Check out the Restaurant Ratings dataset, and many more, at the Data Playground.

Happy analyzing!