Meet Your Commerce Data Service
Originally published at www.linkedin.com.
The Commerce Data Service (CDS) is a “public startup” within the Office of the Secretary that was announced on November 9th, 2015 by Secretary Pritzker to support the data initiatives of the Department’s bureaus. The team consists of a diverse group of data engineers, data scientists and front-end engineers that are laser-focused on fueling economic growth by unleashing Commerce data, creating a data-driven government, and delivering data services by leveraging advances in data science, software development, and standards to accelerate product innovation.
We work with bureau partners and users to build and deliver user-centered data products and services. We consult on effective and efficient approaches to data and technology acquisition, development, and deployment. We provide guidance on data infrastructure choices. We help with opening up data sets, and building, testing and optimizing Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). We help with data integration, analysis, utilization and visualization.
Some of our accomplishments to date include: launching the Commerce Data Usability Project to help entrepreneurs and data enthusiasts more easily understand how to quickly leverage Commerce data; working with the International Trade Administration to use data science to help find companies that are “export-ready”; assisting the US Census Bureau and the Presidential Innovation Fellowship program to improve access to data about income distribution, which included the development of MIDAAS (Making Income Data Accessible As a Service), a tool that provides a nuanced, data-driven discussion of the Census data on income; contributing to the Opportunity Project, which provides tools that help citizens increase their ‘access to opportunity’; and, working with the General Services Administration to ensure that the Department has visibility into the users currently on its Web assets (see Web Analytics Dashboard). We also worked with the White House on raising awareness on the school-to-prison pipeline using a data-driven approach with HelpGirlsOfColor.org, and we are contributing to the US Patent and Trademark Office efforts on their Open Data Roadmap. And in an effort to raise the data skills across the Department we are providing data skills training through our Commerce Data Academy initiative.
Through all of these efforts the Commerce Data Service is committed to improving the delivery of our data assets and information to customers in the private and public sectors.
