Exploring the Colombo Neighborhood

             As a part of the final IBM Capstone Project, we get a tang of what data scientists go through in real life. Objectives of the final assignments were to define a business problem, look for data on the web and, use Foursquare location data to compare different locations of Colombo to figure out which neighborhood is suitable for starting a restaurant business everyone that wants to find restaurants       

As prepared for the assignment, I go through the problem designing, data preparation, and final analysis section step by step. Detailed codes and images are given in Github and links can be found at the end of the post.

Discussion and Background of the Business Problem:

Problem Statement: Prospects of a Lunch Restaurant, Close to Office Areas, and universities in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

        

 Colombo, where I am currently staying to attend university, is the most populous metropolitan area in the world.                  

               There 3 government universities and many other private universities in Colombo. 70% of students have lived away from home and also many job holders live in Colombo accommodate in boarding places. Many people in Colombo have very busy lifestyles and those who are away from home, no facilities to cook own by themselves, tend to buy food from restaurants.

During the daytime, especially in the morning and lunch hours, office areas provide huge opportunities for restaurants. Reasonably priced (one lunch meal Rs.250) shops are usually always full during the lunch hours (11 am — 2 pm) and, given this scenario, we will go through the benefits and pitfalls of opening a breakfast cum lunch restaurant in highly dense office places. 

Target audience: 

 1. New graduates, to find reasonable lunch/breakfast place close to the office. 

  

2. University students who are staying in boarding(away from home) places.

 

3. Business personnel who wants to invest or open a restaurant. This analysis will be a comprehensive guide to start or expand restaurants targeting the large pool of office workers in Tokyo during lunch hours.

  

4. The freelancers who love to have their own restaurant as a side business. This analysis will give an idea, how beneficial it is to open a restaurant and what are the pros and cons of this business.

5. Budding Data Scientists, who want to implement some of the most used            Exploratory Data Analysis techniques to obtain necessary data, analyze it, and,        finally be able to tell a story out of it.