Mount Vision Company a Winner in First Phase of Census Bureau Competition

By KRISTIAN CONNOLLY
MOUNT VISION

Ask Mark Segina, the owner of Segina & Associates LLC, in Mount Vision, whether his rural company is at an advantage when it comes to addressing rural problems, and he’ll tell you he’s not sure. But perhaps it doesn’t hurt, and is maybe one reason why his firm was recently chosen by the U.S. Census Bureau to be among a group of winners for the first phase of StatVentures Address Geolocation Challenge, a competition designed to revolutionize the way addresses are geolocated in remote and rural areas across the United States.

The challenge cohort will convene to kick off Phase 2 late in September. According to a press release announcing the Phase 1 winners of the competition, nine firms have been selected “for their exceptional concepts, and their unique approaches” to addressing the challenges of rural address accuracy.

“Our company is interested in beyond visual line of sight drones/unmanned aerial vehicles,” said Segina about his winning proposal. “Our research on a novel large area sensor array data collection method and technology to locate possible hidden geothermal assets is related to the problem the U.S. Census Bureau is seeking to solve. 

“Our technology offers a way for the Census Bureau to capture and maintain residential addresses that are not traditional mailing or city-style addresses more efficiently or effectively than solely by sending a human canvasser out to capture this information.”

The Census Bureau’s challenge is meant to address issues in having accurate information about residential addresses in rural and remote locations in the U.S. According to the bureau, “Without this address data, we cannot correctly send census-takers, known as enumerators, to people’s doors to include them in critical data collection. “

The Census Bureau’s announcement also mentioned “satellite imagery, light detection and ranging, artificial intelligence and machine learning, computer vision, high-resolution stratospheric imagery, synthetic aperture radar, the Global Positioning System, mobile phone and broadband data, crowdsourcing, and new approaches to human settlement detection” as areas of focus of the other Phase 1 winners.

Segina noted that while his work is headquartered in Mount Vision, “we have the capability to work with team members throughout the United States. When a decision is made to move forward with a project, we staff according to the skills, experience, and abilities regardless of where they live. I think this allows us to work with amazingly talented people, so I don’t really think of address when hiring.”

Furthermore, said Segina, he’s working to connect his company’s projects to Otsego County, particularly in drawing from the student population in the area.

“I am presently having conversations with both SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College in Otsego County to develop an internship program where my company would recruit, hire, and pay current STEM undergraduate students to meaningfully contribute on our research project,” said Segina. “I see many benefits with this internship program. One, it introduces our area to students in a professional capacity, who might not have thought it was possible to find a research job in rural Upstate New York. Two, it enables my company to work with some bright, ambitious, and curious students from a variety of backgrounds and communities, and I’ve found that different perspectives can be invaluable in problem solving.”