Alison Alvarez spent over a decade building big data tools for large companies in the media, automotive and banking spaces. She became convinced that more affordable and accessible solutions should exist and applied those insights to build BlastPoint. She has emerged as an expert consultant regarding large geospatial data systems, lecturing around the country to teach people how to use data tools for themselves. Alison is an NSF Research Fellow, a Jack Kent Cooke Fellow, and a Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellow. She holds two Master’s degrees from Carnegie Mellon: a 2007 MS from the Language Technologies Institute at the School of Computer Science and a 2016 MBA from the Tepper School of Business. She is a former advisor to Y-Combinator’s Valor Water.