26 February 2016
Social Investment Insights Tool – Powered by Catalyst
We're proud to have assisted the Treasury with their new Social Investment Insights tool. They needed a simple, responsive publishing platform for delivering their data to the community and the wider public sector.
The analysis and online tool have been made possible through Statistics NZ's Integrated Data Service. Through the collection of data from across the public sector (such as health, education and justice), Statistics NZ are enabling the analysis and understanding needed to improve social and economic outcomes for New Zealanders.
We built a publishing platform for the tool using open source technologies (R, RStudio Server, and R Shiny). The platform uses a modern container-based architecture which enables flexible horizontal scaling.
The Social Investment Insights tool visualises complex data about children and youth living in different areas of New Zealand. Making this data accessible and understandable allows it to be used to help inform timelier, better targeted services.
The data on which the tool relies is stored securely in the Catalyst Cloud. As it's available to everyone under a Creative Commons license, we expect it to be downloaded frequently.
Because Catalyst's data centres are located in New Zealand, the data can be accessed and downloaded very quickly – much faster than if it were hosted overseas. Because this is New Zealand's data, we think it's important not to send it offshore, but to store it securely within New Zealand, just in case.
If you'd like to find out more about our bespoke software development services, or how Catalyst Cloud can help your organisation store data securely and access it quickly, we'd love to talk to you. Visit catalyst.net.nz/catalyst-cloud and catalyst.net.nz/products/software-development orget in touch.
ENDS