May 30, 2017

Please join us for a CUSP research seminar to be followed by a networking reception and student Q&A with CUSP alumni Patrick Atwater from ARGO Labs, who serves as project manager for the California Data Collaborative coalition of water utilities.

 

Abstract:

Pioneering public data infrastructure for California water and beyond

On April 7, 2017, Governor Brown declared an end to California’s historic drought, the worst in over 500 years, and announced a new long term framework to make conservation a way of life in California.  This presentation will unveil the first ever data integration of that visionary new water efficiency framework and dig into the underlying infrastructure powering that mission critical data analysis.

That pioneering data infrastructure builds from research conducted at CUSP and powers an integrated suite of analytics to transform how water is managed in the West.  That underlying metered water use data integration has multiple benefits including resharing the data with academic partners and streamlining open water data initiatives across California.

Those tools have helped saved over $20 million dollars for participating agencies and the project has been featured by the White House Water Summit in March 2016, Harpers Magazine, the Associated Press and other water industry news outlets.  This talk will conclude with lessons learned from the California water’s visionary tradition of technocratic excellence and the broader institutional takeaways for the urban data initiatives.

Resources:

Speaker Bio: Patrick Atwater serves as project manager for the California Data Collaborative, a coalition of water utilities working together to share metered water use data and ensure water reliability.  He has worked as a consulting data engineer for a multi-million dollar venture backed startup, ran the numbers for the State Water Contractors on Governor Brown’s Delta Fix project and co-authored the feature June 2015 American Water Works Association article on how data science can help water utilities adapt to climate change.  As part of Team ARGO, his civic data science work has been featured by the Knight Foundation and Fast Coexist.  He studied mathematics and PPE at Claremont McKenna College, holds a master’s degree in urban informatics from NYU CUSP, and completed the Coro Fellows program.  He currently serves on the board of the Los Angeles Education Partnership and has written extensively on California, technology and the future of government operations.