WOMBAT 2025

The Annual Workshop Organised by the Monash Business Analytics Team.
29th-30th September 2025
Monash University (downtown), 750 Collins St, Melbourne

The purpose of this workshop is to bring together analysts from academia, industry and government to learn and discuss new open source tools for business analytics and data science. The theme of this year’s event is designing data driven discoveries, which will feature tutorials and talks on statistical software, research collaboration, and impactful data analysis. You should come if you are an analytics professional, or leading a team of analysts or a developer of new open source tools.

Keynote

Nicola Rennie

Nicola Rennie is a data visualisation specialist, working at the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom. She has a background in statistics and data science, who is interested in understanding how to effectively communicate quantitative information in an accessible way. She advocates for using open source tools, and has experience in D3, Svelte, R, and Python. Nicola co-authored the Royal Statistical Society’s Best Practices for Data Visualisation guidance and is a member of the Editorial Board of Significance magazine, particularly focused on data visualisation. Nicola is a committee member and secretary of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) Teaching Statistics Section Group, and is also one of the RSS’s 2024-2025 William Guy Lecturers who has recorded and delivered talks aimed at 11-16 year olds on the topic of using data and statistics to shape decision making in medicine and healthcare. She has also previously been a committee member of the R-Ladies Global Team and the R-Ladies Lancaster chapter organiser.

Designing for decision-making: How to build effective data visualisations

Data visualisation can be a very efficient method of identifying patterns in data and communicating findings to broad audiences. Good data visualisation requires appreciation and careful consideration of the technical aspects of data presentation. But it also involves a creative element. Authorial choices are made about the “story” we want to tell, and design decisions are driven by the need to convey that story most effectively to our audience. Software systems use default settings for most graphical elements. However, each visualisation has its own story to tell, and so we must actively consider and choose settings for the visualisation we are building. In this talk, Nicola will showcase why you should visualise data, present some guidelines for making more effective charts, before discussing examples of good and not so good charts.

Registration

Attendance will be limited to 20 participants (in-person and online) for each of the 8 tutorials on day 1, and 100 participants (in-person only) for day 2’s workshop. We will also have a rich collection of hex stickers available on both days for all to choose from to decorate your laptop!

Registrations opening soon.

Schedule

Please note that all session times are in AEST.

Mon 29 Sep - Tutorials

08:30 A.M. - 09:00 A.M.

Coffee and Registration

09:00 A.M. - 10:30 A.M.

Morning tutorial (session 1)

10:30 A.M. - 11:00 A.M.

Morning tea break

11:00 A.M. - 12:30 P.M.

Morning tutorial (session 2)

12:30 P.M. - 1:30 P.M.

Lunch (on your own)

1:30 P.M. - 3:00 P.M.

Afternoon tutorial (session 1)

3:00 P.M. - 3:30 P.M.

Afternoon tea break

3:30 P.M. - 5:00 P.M.

Afternoon tutorial (session 2)

Tue 30 Sep - Invited Talks

08:30 A.M. - 08:45 A.M.

Coffee and registration

08:45 A.M. - 09:00 A.M.

Welcome

09:00 A.M. - 10:00 A.M.

Keynote

10:00 A.M. - 10:30 A.M.

Morning tea

10:30 A.M. - 12:00 P.M.

Invited talks - Communications and reporting

12:00 P.M. - 1:00 P.M.

Lunch

1:00 P.M. - 2:30 P.M.

Invited talks - Software & Tooling

2:30 P.M. - 3:00 P.M.

Afternoon tea

3:00 P.M. - 4:30 P.M.

Panel discussion - Data Science Teams and Workflows

4:30 P.M. - 5:00 P.M.

Closing discussion

Keynote

Registration

Schedule

Mon 29 Sep - Tutorials

Tue 30 Sep - Invited Talks

Sponsors