{"id":3000020402,"date":"2020-09-25T11:22:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-25T15:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/?p=3000020402"},"modified":"2024-06-12T13:46:52","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T17:46:52","slug":"the-data-scientist-with-a-clear-vision-for-clean-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/community-stories\/member-spotlight\/the-data-scientist-with-a-clear-vision-for-clean-water","title":{"rendered":"The data scientist with a clear vision for clean water"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Black business owners and workers too often face systemic biases: from underrepresentation in the boardroom to higher rates of unemployment. In <\/em>Black-Owned and Proud<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, we profile innovative Black entrepreneurs building businesses and bringing much-needed change to the face of enterprise.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doll Avant was researching the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, in 2016, as CEO of Water Transit Solutions when her father was diagnosed with diabetes. A former NASA statistician and recording artist, her dad was an influential figure in Avant\u2019s life\u2014from him, she inherited her left-right brain merge, Avant, a data scientist and singer, says.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What especially troubled Avant was that neither her dad\u2019s diet nor his lifestyle had changed before the diagnosis. But then she found a study that linked the level of arsenic in the local drinking water to a host of health complications. There wasn\u2019t a clear link to her father\u2019s sickness, but the discovery got her thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when it became personal to me,\u201d she said. \u201cI wondered: How many people are exposed to chemicals because they’re in their water?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Avant\u2019s father passed away in June 2017 due to kidney complications. (Avant declined to state the name of the town where he lived so as not to denounce one municipality, but rather to draw attention to the pervasiveness of water quality issues. She discovered that there are over 3,000 locations in the U.S.<\/a> with more lead in their water than in Flint.) Two weeks after her father\u2019s funeral, she launched her company, Aquagenuity<\/a>, to provide consumers with information on water quality across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter Flint, people were marching in the streets and treating it like a political problem,\u201d Avant says. \u201cBut I\u2019m a data scientist. I saw this as a data problem, as well as a problem of inequity and class. The people who needed information about what was in that water couldn\u2019t get it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n