DataGovs brings IoT data to life through proprietary analytics tools

The Internet of Things (IoT) has emerged over the last decade to bridge the gap between the increasingly intertwined digital and physical worlds. In the Internet of Things, physical objects are embedded with sensors. These sensors digitally transmit data, which can then be scrutinized with the ultimate goal of understanding and improving processes.

The problem, asserts data scientist Gregory Johnson, is that organizations are overwhelmed with a deluge of data. Over the last few years, the Jamaican-American Miami native has played an active role in our tech ecosystem. He led Code for South Florida, worked at Microsoft as an Azure Program Manager & Civic Innovation Fellow, and was an early team member at two healthtech startups. He also completed a fellowship at Stanford, where he focused on exploring new budget models in the public’s interest leveraging data governance.

Through many of these roles and other data projects, Johnson realized that organizations often were unable to take full advantage of the data they collected. “We kept noticing that while sensors seem to play a fundamental role in helping organizations to monitor their assets, it’s tricky and complex,” Johnson told Refresh Miami.

Gregory Johnson, a frequent speaker, spoke at the DataGovs Data+AI Basel Event in December.

Fresh off his Stanford stint, Johnson decided to launch DataGovs, a startup that is on a mission to leverage digital tools to manage physical assets, alongside co-founder Ngoma Mbaku. “We’ve created an easy-to-use solution that helps organizations take the sensor data they are operating with today and tie it to key performance metrics such as safety, sustainability, compliance,” explained Johnson.

While Johnson and DataGovs have extensive experience working with governmental organizations, including the City of Miami, their services are just as applicable to the private sector. Any organization that depends on physical operations to some extent is fair game for Johnson and team. (The “Govs” in DataGovs is short for data governance – the efficient and effective use of data – rather than alluding to the startup’s government clients.)

DataGovs’ offering can be broken into three sequential actions: connect, automate, and monitor. First, DataGovs’ platform acts as a central destination where organizations can feed in disparate datasets, leveraging the startup’s pre-built integrations and data applications. Organizations can then automate the analysis of the data collected using DataGovs’ machine learning templates. Finally, DataGovs’ customers can monitor all their assets and analyses in one place on their computers and mobile devices.

DataGovs team at work.

The use cases of DataGovs are as unique as the clients themselves. But one indicative example is the City of Miami’s use of the platform to track the safety and compliance of micromobility providers. That’s just the tip of the iceberg for DataGovs’ work with the City, which included building a digital infrastructure that supports all the IoT operations across Miami.

DataGovs also works with a handful of partners, including Helium, a blockchain-based telecommunications company that enables users to deploy their own wireless internet networks. DataGovs has integrated into Helium’s devices to better monitor their wireless hotspots and observe the environmental conditions where they were placed.

Since being founded last year, DataGovs has grown to seven full time employees and achieved six figures of revenue. The startup is bootstrapped, and while Johnson said that DataGovs has no immediate fundraising plans, he signaled that DataGovs might be open to external funding from the right investor.

Left to right, Part of the DataGovs team: Ailyn Guerra, Customer Specialist; Yousef Lari, former Data Analytics Intern; Ngoma Mbaku, VP of Engineering and co-founder; Olivera Jovanic, former Data Analytics Intern; and co-founder and CEO Gregory Johnson.

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Riley Kaminer