🏆 Announcing the judges' favorites from the Power BI DataViz World Championships | EU Edition

[slindsay]

Post updated: 27 Aug 2025

The prelim round of the Power BI Dataviz World Champs is officially behind us, and as always, the level of talent was incredible. Every entry had something special, and the judges had some of the toughest deliberations we’ve faced yet.

The contest brief asked participants to design for data journalists, editors, and content producers. Reports needed to surface patterns, contrasts, and outliers; spark stories; and make data explorable, credible, and visually compelling. Entries were scored on insightfulness, creativity, innovation, and accessibility, plus a boost from the community’s kudos (likes).

We saw participants push the boundaries of storytelling with data: some added supplemental datasets (everything from global wealth to Eurovision), others zoomed in on the most revealing years of data, and many created explorers with interactivity beyond what we imagined. The creativity, thoughtfulness, and attention to detail across the board blew us away.

While only four finalists are moving forward to the live championship round at FabCon Vienna, we couldn’t let the prelims pass without recognizing some additional standouts. That’s why we’re excited to share the Judges’ Favorites - four entries that impressed us so much we just had to give them a spotlight:

👉 Tuomo Kantala: Europe by Numbers: Data for Stories - Microsoft Fabric Community

• Tuomo's entry nailed the brief and presented some awesome insights directly on the landing page. Check out their data explorer that included something unique, sentiment analysis!
  

👉 Santhana Lakshmi Ponnurassan: Europe In Focus: Well-Being, Culture and Sustainab... - Microsoft Fabric Community

• You likely recognize Lakshmi's work - she was a finalist in the Las Vegas World Champs and is consistently at the top of our contests! Her design aestheic is beautiful and this report is no exception!
  
  

👉 Benjamin (Bunzietheboo): Life In Europe - How to choose the right country - Microsoft Fabric Community

• Benjamin's clean design stood out to the judges! He also added some detailed data that gave context to the higher level data, like, what does "cultural participation" mean. The added context made his entry stand out!
  

👉 Injae Park: AI Scenario Explorer: European Life Satisfaction D... - Microsoft Fabric Community

• You may recognize Injae's work - he's been a consistent top scorer in our dataviz contests and performed live on stage in Las Vegas. Well done Injae! This is another one of your incredibly insightful pieces of work.
  
  

We also want to give a special shoutout to the four reports that scored a perfect score for accessibility. Of the four accessibility standouts, one was a finalist and another a judges favorite.

Making dataviz usable and inclusive for everyone takes extra effort, and these participants raised the bar for all of us:

✅ Judges Favorite and Accessibility Star, Tuomo Kantala: Europe by Numbers: Data for Stories - Microsoft Fabric Community

✅ Finalist and Accessibility Star, Aanor Le Gouic: Does Cultural Activities Make Europeans Happier? ... - Microsoft Fabric Community

✅ Accessibility Star and Winner of the PBI10 contest, Matteo Vanuti: Explore. Compare. Discover Europe's Trends - Microsoft Fabric Community

✅ Accessibility Star and Community Contributor, John Colley: Life in Europe: The Nordic Model Leads the Way - Microsoft Fabric Community

To every participant: thank you for sharing your creativity and skill with the community. You’ve made this competition a celebration of what’s possible with Power BI.

Have questions about the judging? Check out our behind the scenes blog post and drop questions there if you have them!

[bi_tk]

congrats to all

[Tuomo]

Thank you so much for the recognition and kind words. It was inspiring to see the work of so many talented creators, and I’m very grateful to have earned both a Judges’ Favorite and an Accessibility shoutout from this group! 🙏 Thanks again to the organizers, and huge congrats to all the finalists!

[Peter_23]

amazing skills! 🙂