Welcome to Data Society: Our Founders’ Story

Merav Yuravlivker was looking for a way to take her powerful passion for education to a new level of impact. After a decade of 90-hour workweeks of manual processing in endless spreadsheets as an analyst on Wall Street, Dmitri Adler needed a break and landed on a data-powered breakthrough. John Nader was eager to lend his expertise in startup law and corporate operations to a company that would reflect his appreciation for lifelong learning and technology. In 2014, when these three entrepreneurs met in Washington, DC, Data Society was born.

In 2014, when these three entrepreneurs met in Washington, DC, Data Society was born.

The Inspiration

For Merav, the passion had always been education. While teaching special education in NYC public schools through the Teach for America program, she witnessed the accelerating impact of best teaching practices. Her students’ math and reading levels jumped 1.5-2x faster than an expected year over year based on her approach. Building on that experience, she moved to the International Baccalaureate Organization. She developed deep expertise in online training, assessments, and recruitment, all while building strategic partnerships for the organization.

Meanwhile, Dmitri was a high-performing analyst for JP Morgan, burnt out on Excel sheets and workdays that seemed to go forever.  He knew he needed to channel his skills to change his fate. After learning how to code a programming script, automating and condensing several weeks of work into an afternoon, he searched for additional courses on programming languages or data science to improve his situation, and yet nothing he found suited him – or any professional audience.

Leading Into the Future

“Data science is one of those corporate investments where an ounce of training is worth a pound of hiring,” John Nader reflected. “Inculcating data literacy across an organization yields tremendous ROI, and it has the secondary benefit of helping foster a society powered by data that is more equitable and just.” 

Over the past seven years, Data Society has innovated its content creation processes to leverage machine learning, developed dozens of customized data science training programs, and delivered courses to thousands of professionals, with a 95% student satisfaction rating and 90% client retention.

“Every class brings new moments that provide the impetus for our company,” Merav says. “Seeing the progress that our students make as they go through our programs is still the most rewarding part.”

The Impact

Central to all Data Society training programs are capstone projects that utilize the company’s real-time data and staff’s new skills to create tangible solutions to business problems. For instance, an alumnus from a Data Society training program at a Fortune 500 company won an innovation award for reducing review time for grant applications from 40 hours to 15 minutes. The Air Force estimated we saved them $1.5 million through the AFWERX Data Science Training program. 

“In addition to training programs, we’re providing custom software solutions and consulting services driven by client requests and research,” Dmitri shares. “Our technical team is constantly speaking with customers and developing projects that are cutting edge, which feeds back into the content that we build and the outcomes we help serve.” Among such AI-powered solutions, is a search engine, Apollo, that helps cybersecurity analysts in the U.S. government identify and mitigate cyberattacks. 

As we begin the next phase of growth and innovation, Data Society realizes our founding vision is to transform the way companies operate. Expanding our reach across Fortune 1000 and large government agencies, our goal is to help clients create a data-driven workforce and empower bold, new ideas.

Every class brings new moments that provide the impetus for our company. Seeing the progress that our students make as they go through our programs is still the most rewarding part.

Merav Yuravlivker

Chief Executive Officer