Our team set out to understand barriers to COVID-19 data publishing across the United States. Working with our sponsor, Sarah Schacht, we investigated how governments process and normalize a high volume of data as well as publish information to a variety of stakeholders. We conducted an ecosystem scan of all 50 states and key informant interviews to understand public health department needs. Using our findings, we produced reports highlighting shortcomings and obstacles in COVID-19 data reporting and provided recommendations. The report will hopefully be used to remedy existing problems and prepare government bodies to manage data in the future.

While the COVID-19 pandemic spared no region in the world and left in its wake an unprecedented public health and economic crisis, it has exposed and exacerbated pre-existing socioeconomic inequalities both globally and domestically. Using publicly available datasets, we have built a model that identifies neighborhoods in Miami that are most vulnerable to post-pandemic recession. This will enable government officials and policymakers to make data-informed decisions to spur the revival of the city’s economy.

With our nation’s declared quarantines and the drive to develop and administer COVID-19 vaccines, it is no surprise that young adults are prematurely socializing without heeding safety regulations. While tools have been released to help, they are unnecessarily complicated, time-consuming, and invasive. CovidAware, a COVID-19 risk assessment calculator, is our solution to young adults' needs for in-person social interaction, to mediate their less cautious behavior, and decrease stigmatization they face from their peers. With CovidAware we can reduce the number of new COVID-19 cases and provide the information needed to make informed decisions without requiring users to provide unnecessary information.

CryAw, an AFK cryptocurrency tutorial game, was created to provide comprehensive, structured cryptocurrency knowledge for those skeptical of investing in it or have an interest in understanding it better. Through proven gamification concepts and real-time data from active digital currency exchanges, we provide a novel and concise education method on the future standards of global currency. With CryAw you can enjoy yourself and compete with other users to create the highest value cryptocurrency investment portfolio. CryAw provides increased access to structured cryptocurrency knowledge - thereby cutting through the noise in the cryptocurrency space.

CuriosityBased fosters curiosity within the workplace to help teams and companies build trust, collaboration, and communication. One of their tools is an assessment based on their 7 Forms of Respect™ framework. This framework helps individuals identify how individuals and teams demonstrate respect in the workplace. Their previous system for calculating and visualizing assessment answers was manual and extremely tedious. Our team was asked to automate this process and redesign the results delivery. The resulting product will save time for the CuriosityBased team and allow them to put more effort into services and consulting.

This project looked at bike lending programs at other libraries and organizations to determine if such a program could be implemented at the Natrona County Library located in Casper, WY. After researching other programs, models that could work for the Library were presented to the sponsor along with a projected budget, program guide, and list of partner organizations. If implemented, this project will help the Library fulfill its mission of advocating for literacy, education, and a thriving community.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, more activities have moved online but not everyone has access to reliable internet or the skills to do activities like school and work from home especially in rural communities. By analyzing data that has been collected by Digital Navigators using a set of intake forms, this project attempts to assess the lack of access and skills to reliable internet and devices, and provide necessary resources to rural communities in Appalachia. The results focused on the availability of the internet, access to the internet, especially in low-income households, and interest in employment.

Unlike most major tech companies and public institutions, DOL does not have a standard privacy or data maturity assessment form for program-level use. DOL has studied models from cities like Seattle and commercial enterprises but found that none of the existing models fit their needs. The final deliverable of our project is the survey tool designed for review and adoption by Washington DOL. The survey tool will act as a preliminary check for current data governance practices at DOL, help DOL reinvent data privacy and stewardship standards, and serve as a foundation for WA DOL's future Privacy Impact Assessments.

Data-Driven Waste Management Solutions with trashcan pick-up frequencies are determined primarily by empirical observation. Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) sought a data-driven solution to better estimate waste levels and thus optimize waste bin placement and service scheduling. Our team detailed shortcomings of organization data collection and infrastructure, collaborated with stakeholders to create an appropriate data collection system, and created an optimization model to minimize costs associated with each collection route. Our efforts intend to reduce SPU’s expenses, support a cleaner city, and bolster SPU’s future information management practices to allow further opportunity.