Imagine the ability to predict where industry leaders will build their next headquarters. Well, Curate CEO and Co-founder Taralinda Willis did just that.
After learning that tech giant Foxconn was headed to Wisconsin, Willis and her team predicted that the new plant would be in Racine County. Soon after, news broke that Foxconn had selected a site within the county.
Curate uses data-mining technology to gather information from meeting agendas and minutes from cities, counties and school board websites from across the Midwest.
“We use software to ‘read’ these documents in our database, a lot like a human would read and understand text,” Willis said. “The software helps us identify early information about upcoming projects, shared with our customers in an interactive website.”
After working as a project manager for the University of Wisconsin’s Union South construction from 2010 to 2011, Willis saw firsthand how contractors and vendors missed big opportunities because of timing issues. For example, vendors would call to bid on projects, only to find out they were too late. However, all the information they needed was publicly available.
Willis teamed up with her husband, Dale Willis, who developed the software, to address this need in the marketplace and offer businesses these early insights.
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