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Richard P
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Towards Data Science
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One of my friends is the president of a non-profit that is (thankfully) experiencing growing pains. A group of electrical and mechanical engineers in their early 20s hatched a plan to attach solar panels to schools in Uganda, and hard work and generous donations have fueled success that has lead to larger plans. But, alas, their data was scattered between different Drive accounts in the form of Google Sheets, and understanding their impact or visualizing their future was impossible with the data in its current state. I was lucky enough to get involved in the organization through my friend, who complained about how their data collection sucked, and they were trying to gather all their information into a database. Being an academic data scientist pursuing a Master’s in Public Policy, I couldn’t believe they had such valuable data as school-level data for student health and education before and after the installation of solar panels on schools in rural Uganda, and begged to lend a hand.
Over donuts and coffee in an apartment conference room, I witnessed firsthand the least tidy data set imaginable. Production and solar panel part tables lived in one person’s drive, school surveys and installation procedures…
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Towards Data Science
I write about databases and geospatial topics
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