Sifting data, seeking justice
Growing up in Mexico City as a self-proclaimed geek, Paola Villarreal first realized the power of data after she arrived at a public bike-share station and discovered that all the bikes were taken. Villarreal, then 26 and a self-taught computer programmer, used information the bike-share program had posted online, albeit in an obscure format, to develop a mobile application. The app allowed her to check her phone for sites on the program’s citywide network that had bikes available. She shared the app with her friends, and before long it became so popular city officials sought to buy it, paying Villarreal six digits. With 17 years of experience as a programmer and software developer under her belt, Villarreal credits open source, in which software’s source code is free and available to all, as the main factor that led her to become a data scientist. View all posts in Science & Health Explore: For bigger...