Answering policy questions in seconds
The landscape for trade data is a confusing mesh of overlapping datasets. Policy-makers need to consult subject-matter experts to get answers to seemingly simple questions like “How many cars does the UK export to Germany”?
Working with Swirrl, Department for Trade and Investment (DIT) and the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I developed a search engine for trade data to help analysts find relevant facts to answer policy-makers’ questions immediately.
The ONS standardised the data under its Integrated Data Programme, and Swirrl published it on their Linked-Open-Data platform. Most data platforms stop there, offering a way to search for datasets which you then download and explore yourself. Instead we built a search engine that finds statistical observations inside the datasets, in response to natural language questions from policy-makers.
The search engine filled the role of a subject-matter expert. We could respond in milliseconds to queries that might otherwise take days to answer.
Your data has the answers
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