Videos

Speakers: • Erik Erickson, Chief Data Officer, Hennepin County • Alexander Long, Data Engineer, Hennepin County Session type: Full Length Session Abstract: As local governments faced the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, they were confronted with a significant amount of information. Estimates about the state of the economy, housing, and public safety within communities were readily available, but finding broader insights was much harder. For example, how can we meaningfully compare quarterly unemployment rates for counties against zip-code level small business openings and city-level unemployment filings? To meet this challenge, we created a graph database for Hennepin County that integrates disparate data sources in ways that broaden our understanding of the impact of the pandemic across domains. Moreover, unifying our data in a graph enables us to quickly integrate new data sources. This project is the start of a promising way to integrate operational data about county services and programs, showing who the county serves and interacts with as well as the broader community impact. Our hope is that the flexibility of the graph will allow us to quickly integrate new data about county residents and their communities, improving the efficacy of government services and the well-being of our citizens. Join our session to learn more.