Microsoft invests $1 million in the Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative

Government and business leaders in British Columbia and Washington are collaborating on the development of a new 21st century tech corridor — the Cascadia Innovation Corridor — to encourage meaningful and results-driven innovation and collaboration. This innovation corridor will link Seattle and Vancouver. Last year, Microsoft announced that they fully support this initiative. Brad Smith, Microsoft president and chief legal officer attended Cascadia Innovation Corridor conference along with Microsoft’s board of directors last year.

Microsoft today announced that they are investing $1 million in the Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative (CUAC), a new joint effort by the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the University of Washington (UW). CUAC will use data to help local cities and communities address challenges from traffic to homelessness. This grant will advance the data science work done by these universities.

The CUAC will bring together researchers, students and public stakeholders at two of the world’s top universities to examine the vast data generated by our two cities and identify solutions to problems in transportation, housing and climate. The initiative will strengthen the collaboration between these institutions through mutual learning, the unifying of talent, and the pooling of resources to help accelerate research breakthroughs and the development of new ideas.

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