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Dat Nguyen: Winner of 2023 GIS WebTech Award for Technology Leadership
Figure 1: Example dashboard developed by Dat Nguyen
Dat Nguyen, Research GIS Specialist, joined the Oklahoma Department of Commerce a year and a half ago, with no direct experience in economic development. Whatever Dat lacks in experience, however, he makes up for with energy, enthusiasm, and curiosity.
Dat brought that energy and enthusiasm to the Oklahoma Innovation Expansion Program (OIEP), a major initiative with implications across state government. With no explicit direction from leadership, Dat recognized the need for visual and intuitive displays of current and historical OIEP data, both for use within the Department of Commerce and to summarize information for other government stakeholders.
Dat researched options for creating these summaries and utilized the Department’s existing Esri tools to create multiple, separate dashboards summarizing program data and results. These dashboards are used within the Department and shared with legislators and other government staff. The dashboards make sorting and filtering data easy and visual, allowing ready access to data for decision-making.
Figure 2: Dat Nguyen (right) with Aldwyn Sappleton and Jon Chiappe
Prior to Dat’s creation of these dashboards Oklahoma Commerce had only a static list showing current year data, with no visual display and no easy access to historical data.
The results have been a big plus for Oklahoma Commerce. “We depend upon the Esri technology and Dat’s high-level GIS skills to accomplish our research goals for the agency.” said Jon Chiappe, Director of Research and Economic Analysis at Oklahoma Commerce. “Dat’s abilities and excitement for his work have been a great addition to our Commerce Team.”
GIS WebTech is pleased to name Dat Nguyen one of three winners of the 2023 GIS WebTech Award for Technology Leadership for his ground-breaking work in applying Esri tools to create custom, highly effective dashboards for the Oklahoma Department of Commerce. Our entire team congratulates Dat!