Interactive Business Dashboard Competition

Analytics excellence was on full display at the 6th Annual UWCISA Interactive Business Dashboard Competition on December 16th, 2025, where three outstanding teams emerged as our Top 3 finalists after an intense and competitive journey. The competition began with more than 500 first-year students, narrowed to 122 teams, then to a Top 10, and finally to three finalists. These first-year SAF students worked on a realistic business challenge for Cinema Paradiso, an independent movie theatre, where they designed interactive dashboards using over 300,000 itemized transactions. Throughout the process, they showed strong analytical skills by turning complex data into clear insights, sound business judgment by focusing on what mattered most to decision-makers, and an entrepreneurial mindset by confidently pitching their ideas to senior management.

Congratulations to our winning team TUT107_03 members, Allison X., David T., Hafiz M., Mashen T. and Natasha Z. This outstanding team impressed our judges with their executive-ready dashboard analyzing Cinema Paradiso's operations. Their ability to transform 300,000+ transactions into clear, actionable insights for senior management showcased exceptional analytical thinking and business judgment.

A heartfelt thank you to our distinguished panel of judges: Bo Wang, VP Finance & Process Automation at Cineplex and Prof. Nancy Vanden Bosch, SAF Program Faculty. Your expertise and insights made this competition an invaluable learning experience for all participants.

Congratulations again to our winning team on earning the $1,000 prize, generously sponsored by the Toronto Chapter of ISACA!

 The teams that competed in the final round were:

• TUT103_09: Austin H., Jessie L. & Kanishk Dhruman P.
• TUT107_04: Chandani P., Muhammad Harris I., Prabjot D. & Renee S.

This competition is co-sponsored by ISACA Toronto Chapter.

Past competition results

The fifth annual UWCISA Interactive Business Dashboard Competition, sponsored by the ISACA Toronto Chapter, was held on December 20, 2024.  All 444 students in AFM 112 competed and the final 5 teams presented their dashboards in front of a panel of judges consisting of industry and academic experts: Abhishek Deswal (Senior Accountant at Sagen), Melissa Robertson (Principal, Research at CPA Canada), Nancy Vanden Bosch (Professor at SAF).   Each team was tasked to create a dashboard to help Yoga Strong & Inspired (YSI) Limited monitor performance trends and provide actionable insights for strategic decisions.

Congratulations to the winning team 44 members, Christine M., Kailey Q, and Anthony Q.  A prize of $1000, a generous contribution from ISACA’s Toronto Chapter, was awarded to the winning team.  The winning team dashboard is shown below.

The teams presented in the final round are;

• Team 8 – Katrina C., Harneet G., Swara P., Nezihe S., and Hannah Sara T.
• Team 18 – Emma B., Muhammad F., Aneil G., Reet K., and Hillary M.
• Team 58 – Daniel G., Earagan N., Jassper R., Deveshwar Avtar Singh S., and Austin Y.
• Team 83 – Gurleen B., Zoe F., Aishnoor N., and Muhammad S.

The 4th Interactive Dashboard Competition, co-sponsored by UWCISA and the ISACA Toronto Chapter started with 70 teams (all 452 AFM112 students) and 25 teams advanced to the second round. In the third and final round, held December 15, the top three teams presented their dashboards to a panel of industry and academic experts: Sherry Au (Sr Manager - Audit Analytics Centre of Excellence at the Ontario Treasury Board Secretariat), Edbert Oey (Data Analytics Consultant) and Jenny Oh (Fraud Research & Analytics Manager at RBC).

The winning team was awarded a prize of $1,000, generously contributed by ISACA’s Toronto Chapter. Congratulations to the winning team members; Riley, C., Sunny J., Richard, S., Sanjay K., and Nathan, B.  Their dashboard is shown below.

• Second place went to team members: Wyatt, L., Sydney, B., Aman, S., Karushan, J., and Rustam, A. and their dashboard is shown below. 
• Third place went to team members; Lirit L., Lamisa, K., Darnisa R., and Nicholas, L. and their dashboard is shown below.

2022 the 3rd Annual Interactive Business Dashboard Competition

The 3rd Interactive Dashboard Competition, co-sponsored by UWCISA and the ISACA Toronto Chapter started with 91 teams (all 452 AFM112 students) and 24 teams advanced to the second round.  In the third round, the top five teams presented their dashboards to a panel of industry and academic experts: Mr. Behram Faroogh, Retired Partner, Risk Assurance Services, PwC & Board member ISACA Toronto Chapter; Mr. Edbert Oey, Consultant, Analytics8; and Prof. Laila Rohani, SAF, University of Waterloo. 

The first prize of $1000 sponsored by the ISACA Toronto Chapter went to team 73.  Congratulations to the winning team members; Kinza I., Ally M., Irtiza M., Hamza S., and Abiraa T.!

2021 the 2nd Annual Interactive Business Dashboard Competition

Approximately 570 first year students from the School of Accounting and Finance (SAF) at the University of Waterloo, organized in 117 crews/teams, competed in the 2nd annual UW CISA interactive performance dashboard competition. Crews had to develop an interactive business dashboard for TTS, a toy store retailer that operates 20 stores from Maryland to Maine. Teams had to leverage one year’s worth of data (over 4.5 million records) to build their dashboard. The main objective of the dashboard was to enable the management of TTS to monitor the company's performance in four key areas: gross profits, revenues, cost of goods sold, and operating profits.

The top ten teams presented their dashboards (pictured below) to a panel of judges consisting of SAF faculty members: Prof. Efrim Boritz, Prof. Nancy Vanden Bosch, Prof. Adam Presslee; and Mr. Edbert Oey, Analytics Engineer, RVezy.

Congratulations to first prize winners Mads C., Katarina M., Kaitlyn S., John Y., and Leo C. They will share the $1000.00 prize. See their dashboard below or view the team's full presentation on YouTube:

• Second place went went to the members of team 98: Cole D., Aniket J., Rachel N., and Sisi S.
• Third place went to the members of team 87: Eric Chen Z., Bonita H., Anaika R., Jomel R., and Rachel Elise W.

The data set for the 2021 2nd annual UW CISA interactive performance dashboard competition was provided by the HUB of Analytics Education, a non-profit organization that provides open educational resources to faculty around the globe.

2020 Interactive Business Dashboard Competition

Approximately 400 first year students from the School of Accounting and Finance (SAF) at the University of Waterloo, organized in 82 crews/teams, competed for the inaugural UWCISA interactive performance dashboard competition. Crews had to develop an interactive business dashboard for a wine and liquor retailer. The main of objective of the dashboard is to enable store managers to drill down and understand the effect of the lockdown on the relative performance of their store. All teams started with the same data set, which has daily sales transactions from 12 stores for March 2018, March 2019, and March 2020.

The winner of the competition was crew 29. The members of the crew will share the top prize of $500.00. Congratulations to: Ilhaan J., Asher Jing Fei M., Jasdip Singh M., Jasmita P., and Jackson Y.

• The second prize went to the members of team 34: Sarah Kristen B., Alexander K., Farhan S., William D T., and Christopher Richard Kar-Wing Y.
• The third prize went to team 42: Justin C., Michelle G., Ivan H., James K., and Gordon L.
• The fourth prize goes to team 50: Amar A., Mahek Kaur G., Ajay N., Justin Quan Lok Heen Q., and Nathaniel Y.
• The fifth prize went to team 56: Michael Joshua S., Tim S., Manan V., Boris Y., and Vivian Z.

The 2020 case/competition was based on materials of Chapter 12 of T.C. Stratopoulos & N. Vanden Bosch, Analytic Methods for Business – I: Introduction to Data Analytics Process with Spreadsheets and R, 2020, Waterloo, ON.