RWI Synthetics’ Post

Thank you to Tennessee Valley Authority and their Connected Communities Initiative (https://lnkd.in/gES44K8i) for CTO Dean Bittner's opportunity to present at the April 9th, 2024 webinar series. RWI Synthetics's Synthetic Simulation of a -5 ℉/-20.6 ℃ cold snap outage in Nashville included behind-the-meter loads under unprecedented conditions. This project simulated the ensuing week of the power outage and its impacts on everyone and highlighted a focus on economically disadvantaged households. Our what-if scenario explored how Synthetic People used various kinds of electrified heating, including strip heaters, heat pumps, and plug-in space heaters — and where they lived — to point out hotspots in the grid. The Synthetic Simulation quantified and mapped the demographics and types of need against the availability of capacity to support the need in community resilience centres. Also shown were Synthetic Individuals who were low-income, medically vulnerable, and those who were mobility challenged. The Connected Community initiative at TVA is inspiring. It connects communities and the grid in areas like resilience, where communities and grid partners have roles to play in making sure everyone gets through potential outages ok. At RWI Synthetics, we've been involved in resilience extensively for the last five years. It's impressive and inspiring how quickly grid actors and communities have evolved from a starting point of defining resilience to today, where we see multiple stakeholders and community members working together to mitigate, prevent, prepare, and manage in collaboration. RWI Synthetics's contributions, notably, include people and the help required to weather the storm and recover their regular life as quickly as possible, with the recognition that the economic and medical situation in households can make a profound difference in that journey. You can find out more about the excellent connected community initiative here and that informative and insightful webinar series — https://lnkd.in/gZ6VUwg7. And, you can dig into the details of a simulation of a cold-snap, week-long power outage in Nashville, as RWI Synthetics worked with EPRI, Tennessee Valley Authority, NES (https://www.nespower.com/) and the City of Nashville (https://www.nashville.gov/), to quantify grid, people, and support here — https://lnkd.in/gAPCfgQx #Resilience #Grid #J40 #SyntheticSimulation #SyntheticPeople

The Electronic Recycling Association Association (ERA) focuses on recovering, refurbishing, and reusing donated, retired IT equipment from organizations and individuals across Canada. Founded in 2004, this non-profit organization has prevented the premature destruction of operational equipment and addressed the growing need to manage e-waste securely. ERA supplies charitable groups with wiped and refurbished equipment on an ongoing basis to counter the increasing digital divide. Recently, RWI Synthetics donated equipment to ERA.  The donations will go to support organizations, including Alexis First Nation, Hope Mission, and various schools around Edmonton. If you have equipment to donate to help keep up their vital work, please visit https://www.era.ca/. #Recycling #EWaste #DigitalDivide #ITEquipment #Charitable

This week at the inaugural INNOVATEwest in Vancouver, RWI Synthetics CTO Dean Bittner shared how RWI Synthetics takes Digital Twinning to the next level with Synthetic Twins. Synthetic Twins apply advanced generative techniques to play forward imaginable and unimaginable what-ifs and the future in the 250+ cities that RWI Synthetics has synthesized to date during the breakout session called “Data Odyssey: A Thrilling Journey into Digital Twinning and Dynamic Use Cases.” Synthetic Twinning, which is what RWI Synthetics does, adds data synthesis to the dynamic interplay of the natural environment, people, and the built environment to build better futures, even when there is little, poor-quality, and missing data—or no data at all, like in future and unprecedented scenarios. The conference has been an invaluable opportunity to network and reconnect with fellow innovators in MaRS Discovery District, as well as the many investors and supporters present who support our mission to create the most good for all. #DigitalTwinning #DataAnalytics #DataOdyssey #SyntheticTwinning #INNOVATEwest

Dean Bittner, RWI Synthetics’ CTO, will speak at the cross-sector conference INNOVATEwest in Vancouver on April 16, 2024, at 1:50 pm PDT. Dean will participate in a data and analytics breakout session called “Data Odyssey: A Thrilling Journey into Digital Twinning and Dynamic Use Cases.” We hope to see you there! Digital Twinning is a game-changer, providing virtual replicas that mirror the real world with real-time data and visualization of operational processes and constructs. Synthetic Twinning, what RWI does, takes Digital Twinning to another level by playing forward imaginable and unimaginable what-ifs into the future – days, weeks, months, years, and even decades. These synthetic futures uniquely add and generate the dynamic interplay of the natural environment, people and the built environment. Synthetic Twins are insightful, data- and fact-driven mechanisms that inform strategy for executives and leaders making future-forward plans, even when the future is complex and uncertain. At the session, you’ll see ways to use this revolutionizing and unique way of packaging data to perceive real-time business insights, protect personal data, make predictions, and prepare for and create a better future for all. Get ready for an immersive experience, gain insights into groundbreaking use cases, and chart a course for the future of data in this compelling discussion. In 2022, RWI launched RUNWITHIT’s 3D immersive data and analytics environment in Washington, DC, as a part of the Convergence Hub for the Exploration of Space Sciences Coronal Mass Ejection preparation event, a collaboration between US Agencies (NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Science Foundation (NSF), North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), NOAA: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, SWPC (https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/), U.S. Department of Homeland Security, USGS (https://www.usgs.gov/)), Space Weather Experts (led by Orion Space Solutions, an Arcfield Company) and Grid Operators (EPRI and others). This product launch enables the convergence of diverse expertise in a compelling and accessible visual data and analytics environment combined with synthetic data and modelling to dial-forward scenarios of interest. All of RUNWITHIT’s environments express the intersections of systems, preparation, outcomes, and response for vulnerable populations, including places where the aging and non-hardened grid intersects with racialized, low-income communities in the US. #DigitalTwinning #SyntheticTwin #DataAnalytics #DataOdyssey #ImmersiveData #INNOVATEwest

Eid Mubarak to all on behalf of Team RWI Synthetics! Eid-ul-Fitr is a significant celebration for the Muslim community around the world! It marks the end of the month-long dawn-to-dusk fasting of #Ramadan and the beginning of a feast that breaks that fast. This year, Eid-ul-Fitr falls on or near Tuesday, April 9, subject to the sighting of the moon of Shawwal, 1444, the 10th month of the Islamic Calendar. On this day, Muslims gather at mosques for special Eid prayers, contribute to charities, and then celebrate with festive meals and gifts shared amongst family, friends, and those underprivileged and in need in our community, hence the nickname “Sweet Eid.” Please join RWI Synthetics and wish everyone who celebrates this joyous occasion Eid Mubarak. #Eid2024 #EidMubarak #SweetEid #SugarFeast #Celebration

April 7th is World Health Day 2024, and this year's theme is "My health, my right." At RWI Synthetics, we know continued action is needed to ensure that everyone worldwide has the right to quality health services, safe drinking water, good nutrition, clean environmental conditions, and freedom from discrimination. Since 1948, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been promoting and improving public health so everyone can attain their best health and well-being. However, the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All has found that many countries are not safeguarding their populations by implementing laws that mandate health services. In 2021, half of the world's population did not have essential health services despite at least 140 countries recognizing health as a human right in their constitutions. In Canada, Indigenous people, Métis, and Inuit continue to face barriers to access and discrimination in our healthcare system that persist due to systemic racism. Their life expectancy is consistently lower than non-Indigenous populations. While 144 long-term drinking water advisories have been removed since 2015, 28 remain in place on 26 reserves as of January 19, 2024. The world can do better to honour these rights. #WorldHealthDay2024 #MyHealthMyRight #WellBeing #WHO #HealthServices

Many people have the experience, expertise, and motivation to solve the challenges that face us all in the coming decades, but only some have deep programming skills. At RWI, over the course of years, we tried numerous programming languages with those who are new to programming without success and finally created our own RWI Synthetics' Synthetic Notation Language (SNL). Our novel language is made just for modelling and those not traditionally trained in programming. In text and GUI forms, SNL enables our modellers to craft and perfect models that recreate the elaborate and interconnected web of systems of systems that bring our synthetic cities and environments to life, including all the synthetic people. SNL offers a rich set of model types, including AI-based models, models that involve complex math or physics, probability and statistics, fuzzy logic, and many others. Tools and automation support our modellers in creating, connecting, and trialling their models. The models run inside our RWI Holodeck or our massive clustering environment, with individual models executing in tens or hundreds of picoseconds, millionths of seconds, to produce the billions and 10s of billions of data points that describe our scenarios. When the synthetic data arrives, our modellers dig deep into the specifics to ensure everything is just right and our data is accurate, precise, and with a well-understood fitness for the challenge at hand, no small feat given the scale of the data. #SyntheticNotationLanguage #DigitalTwins #Automation #Modelling #Validation

RWI Synthetics’ Sorcerer Personal is the toolkit used by our modellers, scientists, visualizers, and digital storytellers deploying the RWI approach to create cities, regions and the complex interconnections between systems and people that make up our scenarios. This approach involves our synthesis, modelling, clustering tools, and the RWI Holodeck for visualization. It can tap into enterprise clusters for massive execution scale or execution on a laptop. Sorcerer Personal can also ingest and include third-party data and wrap in third-party analysis tools like R, Jupyter, and others. Sorcerer Personal powers us at RWI to integrate data, create synthetics, run scenarios, and explore and analyze data as we dream of tomorrow. This product enables everyone to explore their data and synthetics in their own way! #Sorcerer #Personal #Individual #Modellers #Visualizers #DigitalStorytellers #GenerativeAI #SyntheticData #FutureThinking #Solutionaries #AI4Good #SyntheticEnvironments #Metaverse

We rely on the accuracy of census data, but just how accurate is it? Often, it is the only data available to support urban planning, economic policy, business decisions, emergency response, and marketing, so it is a best guess. However, data quality issues, the context or timing of the census, and the techniques used to link populations can be unclear to the information recipients. Statistics Canada indicates that a census will inevitably contain errors no matter how well designed. Errors in coverage, response, non-response, processing, and sampling can result in misleading conclusions. Frequently, to prevent re-identification, which is important for privacy protection, the results are obscured, or errors are introduced. Some people are entirely missing. It is common for taxation and census databases to contain only some individuals in a population as subpopulations. Children,  people without fixed addresses, temporary workers, and international students are known to be vastly underrepresented. Other individuals refuse to participate in government services for religious or political beliefs, effectively excluding them from the count. Our Synthetic Population data, on the other hand, is designed to overcome these limitations because it can generate, in a never-identified way, all people and with the nuances that the census needs to include. Each RWI Synthetics' Core Synthetic Population regional dataset comprises a complete population of detailed synthetic people and households. Synthetic individuals, grouped into family and non-family households, are free of privacy and security implications. Geo-tagged individuals and households are generated using census data, among other open data sources, and are hyper-localized to each synthesized region. #CensusData #SyntheticPopulations #UnderRepresented #DecisionMaking #BigData

RWI Synthetics invites you to learn about the traditions of the Sikh community and their significant impact on Canadian society. Sikh Canadians celebrate Vaisakhi in April during Sikh Heritage Month. The Legislative Assembly of Ontario proclaimed April as Sikh Heritage Month in 2013, providing an opportunity to celebrate the arts, culture, and heritage of Sikh Canadians. We encourage you to educate future generations and better understand cultural diversity. #Sikh #Heritage #Traditions #Celebrate #CulturalDiversity #Vaisakhi