Microsoft has provided $1 million to fund UBC and the University of Washington in a data science initiative, the Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative. As UBC President Ono said in the UBC press release, which gives details of the initiative, "Thanks to this generous gift from Microsoft, our two universities are poised to help transform the Cascadia region into a technological hub comparable to Silicon Valley and Boston". The Statistics Department is proud to be a part of the Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative, by providing a data scientist (a staff member of the Department's ASDa) to support this summer's Data Science for Social Good student workshop.
We hope to continue to be active partners in other initiatives in the Cascadia Innovation Corridor - a growing co-operation among regional tech companies and researchers. To read about some of the buzz, see the October New York Times article.