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VIA Awarded Funding by MassCEC

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VIA is pleased to share that we have been awarded funding through MassCEC’s InnovateMass program for a behind the meter energy storage project. Governor Charlie Baker discusses the importance of supporting the 18 startups awarded:

“Providing strategic support to entrepreneurs and startup companies is critical to helping Massachusetts maintain its position as the national leader in cleantech innovation,” said Governor Charlie Baker. “These early-stage companies provide a vital source of job creation and economic value while helping the Commonwealth meet the challenges posed by climate change, and we are committed to helping support the growth of the vibrant startup community.”

For the formal press release titled “Baker-Polito Administration Announces $1.7 Million in Funding for Clean Energy Startups” visit MassCEC’s website.

 

VIA Earns Spot on the 2020 Global Cleantech 100

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VIA, a leader in providing energy analytics while maintaining data privacy and security, was named a 2020 Global Cleantech 100 company by Cleantech Group.

The 2020 Global Cleantech 100 is the 11th edition of the respected annual guide to the leading companies and themes in sustainable innovation. It features the private, independent, and for-profit companies best positioned to contribute to a more digitized, de-carbonized and resource-efficient industrial future.

An excerpt about VIA from the report:

Keep an eye on
Companies that enable the sharing of valuable data between companies facing similar challenges are growing in importance. Via Science (VIA), a newcomer to the list, is using a combination of AI and blockchain to clean datasets from large energy players and share them anonymously with peers to accelerate problem-solving in this space.

The list combines Cleantech Group’s research data with qualitative judgements from nominations and insight from a global 80-member expert panel of leading investors and executives from corporations and industrials active in technology and innovation scouting. From pioneers and veterans to new entrants, the expert panel broadly represents the global cleantech community and results in a list with a powerful base of respect and support from many important players within the cleantech innovation ecosystem. The Global Cleantech 100 program is sponsored by Chubb.

“It feels right that our first list of the future-defining 2020s, should see a continued strengthening in the representation of truly impactful and necessary innovations to transform our diets, to enable a more renewable-heavy energy system, and to capture and utilize the vast levels of CO2 we have been freely emitting for decades,” said Richard Youngman, CEO, Cleantech Group. “Also included in our 2020 list are some big and critical shots at solving global problems – from proving out fusion and next-gen batteries to zero carbon aviation.”

About VIA
Headquartered in Boston, VIA provides mission-critical software for secure data exchange and trustworthy AI without compromising speed, simplicity, or resilience. Its military-grade architecture helps defense, public safety agencies, and humanitarian organizations use AI while maintaining control of sensitive, distributed data even in contested or offline environments.

About Cleantech Group
Cleantech® Group provides research, consulting and events to catalyze opportunities for sustainable growth powered by innovation. At every stage from initial strategy to final deals, we bring corporate change makers, investors, governments and stakeholders from across the ecosystem the access and customized support they need to thrive in a more digitized, de-carbonized and resource-efficient future.

The company was established in 2002 and is headquartered in San Francisco with a growing international presence in London. Our parent company, Enovation Partners, is based in Chicago.

Media Contact:

Laura Dolby
Cleantech Group
Email: laura.dolby@cleantech.com

 

VIA Included in Tracxn’s “Top Emerging Blockchain Startups” List

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Tracxn, a market research platform that tracks startups, private companies, and innovative sectors, has included VIA in its coveted list of “Top Emerging Blockchain Startups.” 

VIA is proud to be featured as a “Minicorn” on the list, as Tracxn explains:

“The Minicorns – are the high growth early stage ventures (Series A+). Watch out for these companies as they take the business to the next level, by scaling up for the accelerated growth.

For the full list, visit the Tracxn website.

 

Thank you, 2019. Now, let’s do this 2020!

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As we kick off 2020, we can’t help but think of all the moments from 2019 that contributed to what we think will be the biggest year yet for VIA.

Near and Far, Our Team Represented VIA
In 2019, our team traveled the globe to help spread VIA’s message. Our CEO, Colin Gounden and Senior Vice President, Joe Babiec, gave presentations at European Utility Week in Paris, Swiss-US Energy Innovation Days in Austin, TX, various Plug and Play summits, EDP Starter Acceleration Program in Houston, TX, and EPRI Venture Day in Chicago, to name a few. Kate Ravanis, our Chief Operating Officer, also spoke at the Greentech Media Blockchain in Energy Forum in New York City.

In addition, we were proud to sponsor, speak, and participate in several events across Montreal including Women in Physics Canada, McGill Physics Hackathon, and Montreal AI Symposium. We opened our doors for Startup Open House Montreal and hosted our own VIA Open House Party (featured below).

Fresh Off the Press
We wrapped up 2019 with six press mentions, two “Top” lists, and two technical blogs written by our team members. To take a trip down memory lane, check out press mentions here: BitcoinExchangeGuide.com, Axios (and follow-up article) GreenBiz, Disruptor Daily, and Utility Dive; “top” lists here: Top 5 Big Data & Machine Learning Startups in Energy and The 10 Coolest Blockchain Startups of 2019 (So Far); and finally, our technical blogs: The Importance of Unit Testing and Understanding How EV Charging Behavior Affects Distribution Networks.

Our VIA Community Continued to Grow
Internally, we hosted two In-Person All Hands events in Montreal (featured below) where our team brainstormed big ideas for 2020. We held our first annual VIA Spirit Week where each office celebrated what it means to be part of the VIA team. Lastly, we created two videos on what it’s like to join VIA: The VIA Team and Applicant Journey.

The VIA community includes more than just our internal team members. This year, we launched our GDAC™ program and welcomed founding members Hawaiian Electric and Vector to the VIA community. In addition, we were pleased to share that the Westly Group led an investment round in VIA.

Our hats are off to you, 2019. Let’s do this 2020!

Understanding How EV Charging Behavior Affects Distribution Networks

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The International Energy Agency projects that 30% of all vehicles will be electric vehicles (EV) by 2030. This transition, at the intersection of electric power and mobility, combined with increased generation from renewable resources has the potential to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the years ahead. To make this happen, utilities who operate the distribution network need to understand how this new demand for electricity will affect smart grid assets. Our primary job at VIA is to help utilities navigate these shifts by understanding their data and fostering collaboration through our Global Data Asset Collaborative™ (GDAC™) program. As an example, VIA recently kicked off our first GDAC™ by focusing on transformers. Through this GDAC™, we are beginning to see that transformers are stressed by the switch to EVs and our focus will be on helping utilities find ways to keep these assets healthy over the coming years.

There are at least two things that make charging an EV different than, say, running a central AC unit. First, the power that needs to be delivered to an EV is around 20kW, which is four or five times the power required for a typical central AC unit, which ranges from 3-5kW. A “short-range” charge to power the EV so that its owner can commute could require around 40kWh, thus a “slow-charge” for a “short-range” car requires about two hours of charging. Powering large fleets of EVs will clearly require extending the capacity of current electricity distribution networks. 

The second issue that makes charging an EV different is timing. The timing of EV charging events changes the daily load profile of the home, workplace, and in urban centers equipped with networks of charging stations. Transformers are generally able to run past their rated capacity so long as they are given ample time to cool overnight. That is changing as commuters return home after work to charge their vehicles, never allowing transformers that time to cool down, which can cause them to malfunction and in extreme cases, explode. EV charging events, because they demand so much power so quickly from the grid, can lead to shifts in voltages along the distribution network. This leads to wear and tear on tap changers and other voltage regulation mechanisms. 

Utility asset managers need to understand which transformers in their fleet are most at risk as EV penetration increases. A recent study by researchers at Ohio State University illustrates what needs to be done to understand the effects EVs have on transformers and voltage regulators (“An Integrated Algorithm for Evaluating Plug-in Electric Vehicle’s Impact of the State of Power Grid Assets”). The authors have studied a representative sample of urban, suburban, and rural areas and tried to answer the question “What would happen to the distribution grid if each home had an EV?” To understand both the total load and the rapid charging behavior, the authors used actual distribution grid topology provided by American Electric Power (AEP) and simulated the behavior of the system as EV charging events are inserted into today’s “baseline” load demand. The authors find that suburban areas are expected to see the greatest stress, as it is assumed that, in urban areas, additional power will be provisioned by specific “fast-charging” stations while the suburban dwellers load will stress the transformers that serve their primary residences. In rural areas, the lower population density typically means that the transformers are not as heavily loaded as in a suburban area. Some authors predict long-term changes in mobility patterns that will increase the number of rideshare services (i.e., Uber). Rideshare cars are typically required to drive all day and would require longer charge times. This corresponds to the most aggressive scenario studied by the authors, in which case they expect insulator degradation to occur after just one year. The results illustrate the socio-technical complexities of planning the future smart grid and the need for detailed studies on how people are expected to use their vehicles.

Author’s Note

As a highly-trained problem solver with deep scientific and computing expertise, I’m always hungry for tough problems to solve. There’s no doubt that integrating EVs into the smart grid is a tough problem. More importantly, it is a high-impact socio-technical problem that we as a society need to solve to transition to a greener future. Working together with the world’s largest utilities, VIA is in a position to help solve these problems, a privilege I am grateful for every day I go to work. At VIA, we have a company value, “Love in=Love out” which means that if you love what you are doing, you will do great work. I expect we will do great work in this area, and help our customers navigate the challenges of the EV revolution.

VIA Highlighted in “The Rise of Privacy Preserving AI”

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VIA was recently featured in a second Axios article titled “The Rise of Privacy Preserving AI”. The article discusses how new AI methods, such as federated learning, allow companies to benefit from collective data analytics, without having to reveal sensitive data.

In energy, predicting the next catastrophic power equipment failure requires data on previous problems. Because these events are rare, companies need to team up to share their data for collective analytics. VIA launched the Global Data Asset Collaborative (GDAC™): Transformers, where power companies are able to share data while still preserving privacy (through federated learning), with the goal of improving decision making related to operations, maintenance, and replacement of transformers.

To read the full article, visit Axios’ website.

The Westly Group Leads $7M Investment in VIA

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VIA, a leader in using artificial intelligence and blockchain to provide security and data analytic solutions for the energy and utility industry, announced that the Westly Group is leading a $7M seed investment in Via Science, Inc. (VIA). The funding will accelerate VIA’s customer acquisition and increase the number of network operators in its Global Data Asset Collaborative™ (GDAC™) program. GDAC™ is the power industry’s first predictive maintenance application combined with a multi-company, privacy protected, distributed database of equipment data.

“The Westly Group has met with over a hundred AI and blockchain companies, and we believe that VIA is the clear leader in the energy sector. VIA has a groundbreaking business model and a unique approach to collaborative analytics. This combination is exactly what the power industry is waiting for,” said Steve Westly, founder and managing partner of the Westly Group.

“Our team at VIA is very excited to have selected the Westly Group as partners. What impressed us most about the Westly Group is the breadth and depth of the relationships they have in the power sector. Their LP base of major global utilities is unparalleled. Membership in our GDAC™ program is already growing. With the support of the Westly Group, adoption by network operators will only increase,” said Colin Gounden, CEO of VIA.

About VIA
Headquartered in Boston, VIA provides mission-critical software for secure data exchange and trustworthy AI without compromising speed, simplicity, or resilience. Its military-grade architecture helps defense, public safety agencies, and humanitarian organizations use AI while maintaining control of sensitive, distributed data even in contested or offline environments.

About The Westly Group
The Westly Group has successfully raised three venture funds that invest in rapidly growing software, IoT and Big Data companies in the smart energy, mobility and building sectors.  The Westly Group has 12 of the world’s larger energy and auto companies as investors and has had four companies go public on NASDAQ including Tesla Motors.

Hawaiian Electric Joins as Second Founding Member of GDAC™, Alongside Vector

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VIA and Hawaiian Electric are pleased to share that Hawaiian Electric has joined GDAC™ alongside Vector, as the second founding member. By joining in the collaborative (which is in partnership with Elemental Excelerator) and focusing on substation transformers, Hawaiian Electric hopes to improve decision making related to operations, maintenance, and replacement of their substation transformers. In particular, its goal is to reduce unexpected issues or failures, determine the right spare equipment inventory levels, and reduce the frequency of corrective maintenance.

“Like most electric utilities, Hawaiian Electric does its best to maximize use of grid infrastructure, some of which are nearing the end of their practical use,” said Rick Pinkerton, Director, Asset Management at Hawaiian Electric. “As we modernize our grid, we’re always looking for ways to improve our decision making. We joined GDAC™ to learn from other members and from VIA’s expertise in AI and machine learning, to improve our capabilities to prudently manage the performance, risk, and cost of our fleet of substation transformers, and other T&D assets in general.”

During the inaugural GDAC™ workshop, Hawaiian Electric and fellow GDAC™ member, Vector, shared and discussed their current substation transformer fleet management practices, plans, and challenges, as well as specific GDAC™ efforts and outcomes that would provide the most value to each member.

“We’re thrilled to have Hawaiian Electric join the GDAC™ community. Hawaiian Electric has been referred to in the industry as a “postcard from the future” due to their high levels of distributed solar penetration, progress towards transforming their grid to provide 100 percent renewable energy by 2045, and experience dealing with a host of unprecedented challenges that many in the industry will not face for several years,” said Kate Ravanis, Chief Operating Officer at VIA. “Their position as an innovative leader in the industry and the contributions they made at the GDAC™ workshop were invaluable to other members and the overall project outcome.”

Hawaiian Electric will be contributing multiple years of operational, test, maintenance, and failure data from more than 300 substation transformers alongside similar data for Vector’s 200-plus substation transformers. The company is excited about joining the GDAC™ community and may have an interest in joining other GDAC™ initiatives, in addition to substation transformers.

About VIA
Headquartered in Boston, VIA provides mission-critical software for secure data exchange and trustworthy AI without compromising speed, simplicity, or resilience. Its military-grade architecture helps defense, public safety agencies, and humanitarian organizations use AI while maintaining control of sensitive, distributed data even in contested or offline environments.

About Hawaiian Electric
The Hawaiian Electric Companies (Hawaiian Electric Company, Maui Electric Company, and Hawaiʽi Electric Light Company) serve 95 percent of Hawaii’s 1.4 million residents on the islands of Oʽahu, Maui, Hawaiʽi Island, Lānaʽi and Molokaʽi and have a goal of 100 percent renewables by 2045.

The Importance of Unit Testing

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In March, VIA’s Ashley DaSilva, Team Leader, Product Development, was invited to lead a workshop on unit testing for McGill’s Computer Science Graduate Society. The workshop was part of their seminar series: CS Tools and Tricks, which introduces graduate students to topics they may not otherwise explore in depth in their academic programs. Ashley discussed the critical importance of software testing, why developers should embrace unit testing, and when and how to use mocking. She shares her experience with unit testing and a recap of her workshop below.

Learning Never Goes Out of Style

I first learned the importance of software testing in the early days of my theoretical physics Phd program. Back then, most of my coding was limited to scripting. I wrote scripts to model physical systems, analyze data, and visualize results. Over time, I started writing modules to be reused by myself or my colleagues for different projects. The first time I attempted to refactor one of these modules, it broke in unexpected ways, and I spent days tracking down and resolving all the issues.

I’ve grown significantly as a developer since those days, and now lead a product development team at VIA, focused specifically on the Trusted Analytics Chain™ (TAC™). Every day, my team and I build, test, and deploy Docker containers with microservices. This includes Airflow and RabbitMQ for scheduling tasks, Redis as a cache storage, and BigchainDB to host a blockchain. Software testing is critical to each stage of product development, and something we constantly work to improve.

Unit testing is the foundation of VIA’s software testing process, and an essential skill for all of our developers. For example, TAC™ contains several components that all need to communicate with each other. We maintain a list of python scripts that are authorized to run on the system. Components of TAC™ must download this list to verify the checksum of the scripts. If we did not use mocking for the content of the list in the unit tests of these verification functions, then every time the list was updated, the tests would all have to be updated to account for the change. With mocking, we are free to update the list of scripts without affecting the status of the unit tests.

Ready, Set, Resilience!

Clean Architectures in Python by Leonardo Giordani is a great resource for learning more about unit testing and test-driven development. During my workshop at McGill, I presented examples of unit testing and mocking and shared a few exercises for the students to practice on their own. Some of these exercises came from the github repository associated with Giordani’s book. I’ve included some other examples below:

First, let’s look at a snippet of code. The code below shows a DataAnalyzer class. It has a method, get_data, which is a placeholder for however one would want to retrieve the data from an external resource (e.g., a database or an http request). It also has a method,
analyze_data which performs the sum of the items in a list:

class DataAnalyzer:
   def get_data(self):
      # Gets data from an external resource
      pass
      def analyze_data(self):
         data = self.get_data()
         result = sum(data)
         return result

The code below shows one example of a unit test that uses mocking of the get_data method:

from unittest import mock
from calc.analyzer import DataAnalyzer
def test_analyzer():
   analyzer = DataAnalyzer()
   with mock.patch("calc.analyzer.DataAnalyzer.get_data", return_value=[1.0, 2.1, 3.5]):
      result = analyzer.analyze_data()
   assert result == 6.6

In this example, the unittest.mock.patch will be applied to the method specified as its first argument and return the assigned return value every time that method is called from inside the scope of the patch. A sample list is assigned to the return value of the patch of the get_data method. This list should have the same format as the expected output of the get_data method, which in this case is a list of floating point numbers. Finally, the result of the analyze_data method is checked that it matches the expected value.

Mocking can also be used to check how you handle exceptions:

import pytest
from unittest import mock
from calc.analyzer import DataAnalyzer
def test_analyzer_connection_error():
   analyzer = DataAnalyzer()
   with mock.patch("calc.analyzer.DataAnalyzer.get_data", side_effect=ConnectionError("Could not connect.")):
      with pytest.raises(ConnectionError):
         analyzer.analyze_data()

In this example, instead of specifying a return value, there is a side effect. When the specified method is called, the side effect will be executed. In this case, a ConnectionError is raised by the get_data method. Using a side effect is particularly applicable when you have logic in your code that catches and recovers from errors.

Stay Curious

I enjoyed leading a thoughtful discussion on unit testing, and fielded some great questions from the students. One that stood out to me was:

“How can developers make sure that their mocks don’t get out of date?”

This is a really important and sometimes tricky topic! At VIA, we know that unit testing is only the first step of software testing. We also use other types of tests, like integration tests or end-to-end tests help identify problems in mocking before our software reaches users. And isolating and resolving problems at that stage is key to setting ourselves up for a successful integration. 

Mocking allows the freedom to isolate one particular part of your code and focus your unit tests on that functionality. Ideally, the expected inputs and outputs of the component being mocked are not going to change. This is typically true for external modules that you will use, at least within a particular major release of the software. However, if you know a software update will cause a change to your internal code base, it is your responsibility to recognize and communicate how that will affect your teammates. That’s why VIA believes that, in addition to testing, strong team communication and values like Learning Never Goes out of Style, Ready, Set, Resilience!, and Stay Curious are what help us develop and deliver the best iterations of our software to our users. 

BitcoinExchangeGuide.com Emphasizes Potential of GDAC

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BitcoinExchangeGuide.com (B.E.G.), considered one of the “fastest-growing bitcoin and blockchain media outlets on the Internet”, recently shared details of VIA and Vector’s GDAC™ announcement, and describes how it will help energy companies improve operations:

“The fact that this collaboration has VIA means that GDAC™ will be AI-based. And indeed it is at its core given that when it’s finally rolled out, GDAC™ will help power distribution corporations leverage Artificial Intelligence to foretell imminent power faults. Essentially, it will help them take a proactive approach when managing electricity transformers.

AI will also allow the company to conduct regular maintenance works on transformers safely and with greater precision. This way, the company will achieve significant operational efficiencies and subsequently deliver better services for its clients.”

For the full article titled “New Global Data Asset Collaborative (GDAC™) by VIA and Vector for Energy Transformer Data,” please visit their website.

Vector and VIA Partner to Establish Global Data Asset Collaborative™ (GDAC™), a Multi-Company Transformer Database

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VIA is thrilled to announce our partnership with Auckland-based energy company, Vector, to build the world’s first privacy preserving, multi-company database for machine learning-ready transformer data, called the Global Data Asset Collaborative™ (GDAC™): Transformers.

Simon Mackenzie, Group Chief Executive Officer at Vector, comments on the importance of this collaborative:

“With a larger, smarter and more collaborative data asset like the GDAC™ we can refine the information we depend on to keep our network assets in the best possible shape. This is becoming increasingly important as we transition the network to meet the needs of the new energy future, where new technologies like distributed energy resources and battery storage will integrate with the network at scale. We have a responsibility to make this transition as efficiently as we can, and without burdening customers with excessive infrastructure costs. Improving our data and analytics capability will play a central role in that.”

To read the full press release, visit Vector’s website.

So, You’ve Updated Your Privacy Policy

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If you’re like me, your inbox has been flooded since late April with emails announcing updates to privacy policies and terms of service. Consumer brands like Yelp and Etsy, social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram, and, it seems, everyone in between all sent emails. It’s no coincidence. The newly implemented General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) means any company operating in the European Union (EU) needs to update its existing privacy policies to comply with this legislation. And as it turns out, that’s quite a lot of companies.

While it was specifically passed in the EU, GDPR has far-reaching implications for companies around the world. The policy addresses consumers’ growing need for transparency and privacy, which, at first glance, seem to be competing interests. But WIRED offers this helpful explanation: GDPR “gives people the right to ask companies how their personal data is collected”, stored, and being used, and to “request that personal data be deleted. It also requires that companies […] get your consent before collecting it.”

Consumers’ growing need for greater data privacy, security, and anonymity, as well as transparency from companies that collect data, extends to the energy industry. Smart meters are a great example of this: EU Member States “have committed to rolling out close to 200 million smart meters for electricity and 45 million for gas by 2020″, at which time it is “expected that almost 72% of European consumers will have a smart meter for electricity while 40% will have one for gas.”

In theory, utilities could leverage the massive volume of consumer data collected by these meters for AI initiatives that seek to improve predictive maintenance and energy efficiency. However, utilities don’t own this data, consumers do. And the EU wants to safeguard it. So, how can utilities balance consumers’ rights to data privacy, security, and anonymity, while leveraging this wealth of new information to improve service reliability and efficiency?

At VIA, we are enhancing our Trusted Analytics Chain (TAC) platform to address this challenge. TAC Permissions is a new feature that allows energy companies’ customers to determine who has access to their personal data and how it is used. Permissions are stored in TAC’s blockchain, making them immutable and auditable by consumers, corporate compliance departments, and government agencies. VIA’s solution helps to alleviate the tension between:

  • Customers’ needs to protect their data
  • Energy companies’ and algorithm providers’ needs to access data to develop and implement valuable services such as improved energy efficiency and reliability.

Smart meters are just one example of the many digitalization technologies that energy companies are using to transform their operations. The industry as a whole is more data-dependent than ever before. In parallel, consumers are more aware than ever of the consequences associated with misuse of their personal data. Legislation like GDPR requires companies to know and comply with customers’ preferences about using personal data. VIA is proud to offer TAC Permissions as a solution for ensuring that customers’ wishes are respected while AI initiatives yield new ways to improve service and efficiency.

Six Values in Six Months: A Co-op Reflects

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My name is Meg Foley. I have worked as the marketing execution co-op at VIA’s Davis Square headquarters since January. And this is the story of how that became the most rewarding experience of my life (so far!).

That’s me!

In my two years at Northeastern University, I have already made major progress towards some of my life goals, like traveling the world, earning a college degree, and getting real-life work experience (and I still have three more years to go!). I studied abroad in Dublin my first semester, went to classes in Boston for the next two semesters, and worked at a startup in Davis Square for the past six months.

These experiences have all made me who I am today and my time at VIA is no exception. I gained essential professional experience, and each lesson stemmed from VIA’s company values.

Respect a good challenge and challenge with respect

We believe in facing challenges head-on with passion and excitement. We’ve created an environment where team members feel psychologically safe to raise alternative ideas and share their personal concerns, helping us reach better outcomes in the end.

The team loves to step out for ice cream on a hot day! And after a particularly warm day in February, J.P. Licks even featured one of our ice cream photos on their social media.

As the marketing execution co-op, one of my primary responsibilities was maintaining our Zoho CRM (a database that helps us manage all our relationships with our ever-expanding network). But more than just maintain this system, I made it my mission to make it even more efficient and effective. One component of that meant making data reports, like our sales pipeline, more visually appealing. To do this, I worked closely with VIA COO, Kate Ravanis, to hash out the goals and strategy for how this would work.

For me, the biggest challenge was putting my Excel knowledge to work and being patient with changing formats and preferences. Through many versions and rounds of feedback with VIA’s executive team, I eventually found a way to incorporate everyone’s input and all the essential details. Now that visual report is a part of the team’s biweekly demo, and this challenging project led to a new staple piece of internal communications!

Learning never goes out of style

Learning is all about feedback and trying new things. Each person, at every position in the company, has frequent feedback sessions with their manager to set goals and priorities, reflect on accomplishments, and discuss areas for improvement and additional support.

Somerville team at our brand launch (this was a huge deal to be a part of)

One of my friends, who is also on a co-op at another organization, was shocked to hear how often I speak with my supervisor on the marketing team. “I wish I could get any feedback at all!” he said. I was proud to have such an open line of communication, which has been so important and useful for my personal growth.

This open communication also meant I was able to speak up about projects I wanted to pursue, like becoming the VIA Culture Coordinator, and skills I wanted to develop, like written communication, so I was really able to shape my role at VIA to better fit me. With each new responsibility I took on, I created a comprehensive process guide so future co-ops can continue building on projects I started, like our new Instagram account. I hope these guides allow for many future smooth transitions from one co-op to another, and that it’s one way I can continue contributing to VIA’s learning-focused environment.

Be each other’s biggest fan

Everyone deserves a high five once in a while! The more we support each other, the more we encourage wide ranging contributions from diverse backgrounds to solve problems.

The marketing team treated me to a fun brunch on my birthday.

Every person on the team is recognized and celebrated for any number of reasons: professional accomplishments, personal victories, or even birthdays.

In fact, on my birthday I was taken to a lovely brunch by my marketing team. This is a fond memory I’ll treasure forever. Celebrating the individual, like we did on my birthday, is central to VIA’s culture. As the Culture Coordinator, I was proud to be a part of creating even more structure around what we celebrate and how, like birthdays (of course), work anniversaries, and fun holidays like Pi Day and Star Wars Day.

Ready, set, RESILIENCE!

We are solving problems that others have considered unsolvable. Difficult problems require patience and grit. Individuals require resilience to approach a major challenge and overcome all the smaller challenges along the way.

During my co-op, VIA achieved a lot of exciting milestones. One that stands out in particular was winning the MITX Best Technology Innovation Concept Award. We were thrilled to learn we were finalists, but in order to qualify for the next round of review, someone from VIA would need to present a demo of our blockchain-based Trusted Analytics Chain (TAC).

Due to the very busy travel schedules of our client and business development teams, the only person available on the night of the demo was a member of our marketing team. She needed to learn (in just one weekend) the inner workings of TAC and how to demo it, and prepare for any number of questions that might come up with the judges (I was happy to help her prepare by asking the most challenging questions I could think of, and many of those were actually asked on the night of!). Without her determination and ability to deal with high stakes situations, traits that come naturally to everyone on the VIA team, this feat couldn’t have been accomplished.

Love in = Love out

We believe that if you love what you do, it will show in the quality and productivity of your work. Twice a year we get together for a company-wide offsite where team members’ contributions are recognized and new ideas are discussed.

The team has grown from then to now, we have 20 employees as of June 2018.

We had an amazing company offsite this April. This experience was one of the times I felt most immersed in VIA’s love in=love out culture. For example, during the offsite we had an ongoing activity: a fun fact scavenger hunt. Everyone received a list of fun facts with blank spaces next to them, and our goal was to match the anonymous fun fact to the right person. You would not believe how much we committed to this scavenger hunt! I had so much fun getting to know everyone on the team through this activity, while enjoying some friendly competition (people even formed alliances to pool their answers!). It just goes to show that when people really love what they do, it shows, even in small moments of downtime during an all company meeting.

Stay curious

Technology today is moving at a super fast pace. Curious people who constantly explore new approaches and think outside the box help find the best possible solutions.

Some of the marketing team at a recruiting event at Northeastern.

AI and blockchain technology are two of the hottest buzzwords in the tech world (and beyond) right now. But, explaining what they mean exactly is not so simple. The marketing team stays curious about how we can better make writing about what we do more accessible, and our CEO Colin Gounden does a great job of sharing creative anecdotes and analogies to help us.

One example of that is his Van Halen story: the band’s 1982 world tour contract explicitly stated there shouldn’t be any brown M&Ms backstage. Colin explains how this seemingly bizarre request actually illustrates how Ethereum’s smart contracting functionality works. People’s eyes light up every time he explains this (a real A-ha! moment). Marketing was even able to use this to write one of our latest blogs: “Rock Science: How Van Halen Invented Smart Contracts”.

Goodbye and thank you!

That’s my team (on St.Patrick’s Day) rocking green.

I will miss VIA. It was an adventure, one I couldn’t have trekked without the team here in Somerville (shout out to Marketing!). It must seem cliché at this point, but there is not a single thing I would change about my co-op. Being at a company that cares about the individual as much as the company is rare, and I think the strong set of values is to thank for that.