After having worked in several developing countries, I’ve noticed that socio-economic data that is readily available in countries like the US - data we take for granted - is often unavailable in emerging markets. The means of collecting basic socio-economic data often simply aren’t there. So then, how do we measure economic growth in places where statistics are imprecise or unavailable?

The legality of and public’s view towards marijuana is rapidly changing as more states decriminalize and legalize the drug. As such, how have the words associated with marijuana in news articles changed over time?

Water access, affordability, and quality have re-emerged as serious issues in the US and continue to be major problems in developing countries. I wanted to visualize the extent of this issue in the US using water price data and demographic information using clustering algorithms. Check out my repo on github for the code.

Among movie genres, horror stands out for the relatively high number of low budget films that have become blockbusters. These low budget movies are often categorized as B Movies, which Wikipedia defines as low budget, non-arthouse films. For this analysis, I wanted to see what factors - in particular budget - impact the profit margin of horror movies.

There are an estimated 2 billion unbanked adults who lack access to traditional financial services, including credit. Microloans are small loans that provide credit to these lower-income, typically unbanked borrowers. Using platforms like Kiva, individuals can become microlenders and connect to borrowers in other parts of the world. Since Kiva was founded in 2005, 1.4 million lenders have issued $840 million in loans across 84 different countries. Other companies and non-profits have taken notice, and are moving into the microlending space.