>>Abernethy: We're currently in a place where there's
a lot of politics and a lot of news and
but there's also people out there that
are turning their taps on and not
willing to drink the water. Right now
the city of Flint has a much smaller
staff than they had many years ago. At
the city level they don't have really
any resources of folks who are
professional data scientists that can
look at data in aggregate, apply newer
algorithms that are being developed by
researchers in my area and in other
areas. So we are hoping to provide some
of our expertise to their needs.
What we have right now for every
property in Flint, for every parcel, and
we have information of the parcel that
can be used for a predictive algorithm
to decide 'oh is this a property that
should be at risk?' Those properties are
likely to have a very high level of lead
in their water. So one thing that we've
suggested them so far, and one thing
we've been able to develop is a set of
predictions and that provides advice to
folks on the public health side and from
the city side where they might want to
check further for lead pipes, lead
service lines, where they might want to
check for lead in the plumbing, and where
they might want to just be concerned
more broadly about the local
infrastructure of those regions. Our
long-term goals are related to just
provide as much value to the citizens
and the city and state officials this is
not just a fun little visualization
challenge; there are humans that are
actually dealing with this on a daily
basis and those folks need support
