Aziel Orihao of Solomon Islands has won the Pacific Youth second prize in the interactive category of the 2026 Pacific Dataviz Challenge for Ripple, a visualisation of six tropical cyclones between 2015 and 2024.
Ripple, a visualisation of six tropical cyclones between 2015 and 2024 by Aziel Orihao
Source: Aziel Orihao
Aziel Orihao of Solomon Islands has won the Pacific Youth second prize in the interactive category of the 2026 Pacific Dataviz Challenge for Ripple, a visualisation of the lasting effects of tropical cyclones.
The Pacific Community (SPC) said Orihao received US$500 for the entry, which examines six major tropical cyclones that affected Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga between 2015 and 2024.
Ripple uses interactive maps and data stories to trace each cyclone's path and compare outcomes across the affected countries, covering impacts on people, agriculture, livestock, energy and tourism. SPC said the project shows how the same type of event can produce very different consequences depending on local conditions.
The project also sets out gaps in available data, drawing attention to the difficulty of measuring vulnerability and resilience across the Pacific, and looks at how communities adapt to extreme weather.
"[My dataviz] was built with the idea that climate change does not create inequality, but rather it repeats it," Orihao said in his acceptance speech. "I chose cyclones because they're hard to ignore. Climate change is sometimes easy to sweep under a rug; a cyclone isn't."
Orihao received his award at a ceremony at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, which was also streamed online.
The Pacific Dataviz Challenge is led by SPC and partners and invites people from across the Pacific and elsewhere to turn open data into visual stories about the region. Now in its fifth year, it draws students, educators, data professionals, designers, developers and artists, who produce posters, infographics, interactive apps, games and dashboards.
SPC said the 2026 edition was the largest so far, with 463 participants from 50 countries and territories and 16 prize recipients. The theme was climate change, and participants used data to explore its effects on harvests, rainfall, coastlines and livelihoods.
The award is the second year running that a participant from Solomon Islands has been recognised. Crispin Laka received an award in the 2025 challenge for a visualisation on the digital divide, and went on to set up Pacific Skillshare, a project on young people and data literacy. SPC said he has since shared his skills with students at three colleges in Solomon Islands.
Solomon Islands was also represented on the 2026 judging panel by Eddie Trevor Osifelo, deputy editor and weekend editor of the Solomon Star newspaper.
The winning visualisations are published at pacificdatavizchallenge.org.
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