In Greek mythology, King Midas was known for his ability to turn everything he touched into gold. Now, a team of data gurus is hoping for a somewhat similar outcome: being able to transform stores of siloed government data into fresh insight into one of the toughest challenges in America -- income disparity.
MIDAAS, short for Making Income Data Accessible as a Service, is a soon-to-be-released application programming interface, developer toolkit and website that lets Americans explore income data from the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The idea came out of discussions about how Commerce Department data sets could be used to address income inequality, Tyrone Grandison, deputy chief data officer at the Commerce Department, told Nextgov.