As a startup, we get asked some big questions. Here are our responses to some of the most common ones.
In 10 words or less, what do you do?
We provide demographic assessment tools to determine market feasibility.
Describe the problem you are working to solve?
Demographic information shapes decisions that influence how we live, shop and build in a market-based economy. Assets such as retail locations, telecom towers, and countless others are placed with special consideration of the population statistics surrounding them. In other cases, the lack of such information - or understanding of the information - results in unnecessary waste and excessive resource depletion.
Decisions about where to geographically place, expand or tear down infrastructural and consumer components of an economy are made by business owners and policy makers. For their decision-making, they rely on information gathered by analysts who validate, and unify GIS, census and survey data into an actionable format. This work is time-consuming and expensive. It also becomes especially challenging when working in less-developed, fast growing economies in Africa and Asia, where census data is often outdated, lacks spatial detail, and is difficult to obtain.
What is your solution?
Advances in satellite imagery and artificial intelligence (AI) bore the creation of Population Explorer and its products, the PopEx App and the PopEx API. These tools push the boundaries of demographic data by providing powerful prediction capabilities at the granular, square-kilometer level for anywhere in the world. The current product versions provide demographic statistics at a higher resolution than census data affords and unify demographic data across geography and time. In combination with mapping tools, the products greatly simplify the process of demographic assessment.
Our vision at Population Explorer is to become the go-to source for population data and visualization tools that help users understand socioeconomic and demographic trends. Our team’s 20 years of experience working with global demographic data, combined with real-time client feedback, inform our products’ development and validate our market fit. Current Population Explorer clients leverage our products to make decisions that influence the placement of hundreds of business locations spanning entire countries.
Why is it important?
Demographic data sources, such as census and independent surveys, have become lagging indicators despite a rapidly changing world. They lack the micro-level demographic scale required to understand human behavior, making prediction difficult.
Without reliable demographic data, it is difficult to answer questions about a market’s current and anticipated needs. By allowing organizations to better understand relevant demographic data about the people or customers they are trying to serve, Population Explorer equips them to answer their own questions and make better decisions.
What is our most impressive accomplishment to date?
In 2018, the PopEx App was provided to aid workers who used its demographic estimation capabilities to better understand the number and location of children born in remote mountain villages of Pakistan. The researchers were able to locate even the most remote populations and estimate the number of children living there. Population Explorer output was used to update computerized micro-plans for 88% of vaccinators. As a result, they were able to identify and subsequently vaccinate thousands of children who otherwise wouldn’t have been reached. Despite Pakistan issuing the statistics from their most recent census, Population Explorer will continue to be relevant because, unlike the census, it will constantly be evolving and sourcing the best methods for analyzing the changing populations of Pakistan and every economy in the world. This example demonstrates how Population Explorer has the potential to inform decisions that impact thousands of lives. Lives that should not be left out due to the limits of traditional data methods.
