June is a business owner ready to set up shop in Vancouver. She wants to know where in Vancouver her business is most likely to succeed … or to fail.
Kris is an urban planner who would like a better understanding of how the business landscape has changed over time in Vancouver neighbourhoods. She is trying to determine if the services offered in a particular neighbourhood have kept pace with demand.
Tom is the President of a small business association and he wants to understand what features of a particular neighbourhood are likely to help businesses thrive.
Deetken Insight’s Data Science team recently partnered with the Master of Data Science (MDS) program at the University of British Columbia to build a tool to help people like June, Kris and Tom make important planning and investment decisions. The “Evolving Vancouver” or EVAN tool uses publicly available data and a range of machine learning methodologies to predict whether a business is likely to renew its business license. It also provides a geospatial summary of the business license history throughout Vancouver. EVAN was developed as part of the UBC MDS Capstone program.
While the team at Deetken Insight is still refining the tool, we feel it has the potential to provide useful insights into Vancouver’s evolving business landscape.
We really enjoyed working with the UBC team and wish you all the best in your future endeavours!
