Mission: To understand and visualize the critical issues facing the United States and use that knowledge to inform decision making among executives, policy makers, and citizens.

Background: In 2014, Deloitte, Datawheel, and Cesar Hidalgo, professor at the MIT Media Lab and director of Macro Connections, set out to create a comprehensive website and visualization engine dedicated to public U.S. government data. With input from policy makers, government officials, and ordinary citizens, their team worked for over a year to develop Data USA. Funded by Deloitte and programmed and maintained by the MIT Media Lab, the site makes government data for any county, city, metropolitan area, and state in the U.S. easier to find and decipher, with the goal of enabling millions of people "to conduct their own analyses and create their own stories about America – its people, places, industries, skill sets and educational institutions" – and, ultimately, "accelerate society’s ability to learn and better understand itself." The site is free to use, and because the underlying code is open source, developers can build their own applications on the platform.

Outstanding Web Features: Visitors to the site are invited to type the name of a location in the search box on the Data USA home page. A simple location search will return a page that includes three basic stats for that location -- population, median household income, and median age – along with links to more detailed information in five categories: Economy, Demographics, Education, Housing & Living, and Health & Safety. Users who drill down on Demographics, for instance, will be presented with a visualization-rich snapshot of that location based (largely) on data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, including basic information such as median age by nativity, global diversity, race and ethnicity, languages spoken, and its veterans. Visitors who keep scrolling are treated to additional location-specific information related to the Economy, Education, Housing, and Health and Safety. Those interested in taking a deeper dive on one of the pre-loaded "profiles" (industry, occupation, field of study) are never more than a click away, thanks to a handy pop-out nav menu accessible from every page,  The site also offers an interactive mapping feature and a selection of data-driven stories on topics such as the gender wage gap in Connecticut; the racial breakdown of poverty in Flint, Michigan; and the wages of physicians and surgeons across the United States.