West Arete Computing, Inc.

Past Work

Systems behind decades of impact

We’ve built the kind of software you don’t notice until it stops working, for universities, research consortia, and organizations whose impact compounds over decades. The AI work sits on the same foundation.

  1. 01 /06

    MIT / Dr. Amy Glasmeier

    Living Wage Calculator

    Managed the data collection, processing, calculation, design, development, and infrastructure of the de facto authority on living wage data for the United States.

    Dr. Amy Glasmeier at MIT is one of the leading researchers on poverty in America. Years ago she developed a technique for aggregating data from several sources to arrive at the true cost of living for a particular community. West Arete developed this research into a web application that reports the living wage for any community in the country. This research has come to be regarded as the primary trusted resource on living wages in the US, and continues to influence public and private policy.

    • Data
    • Public policy
    • Long engagement

  2. 02 /06

    Internet2 / InCommon

    InCommon Federation Manager

    Led the security audit and initial modernization effort of the web application that manages the metadata for the InCommon Federation.

    The InCommon Federation provides the trust and identity services for hundreds of educational institutions and millions of users. It’s what allows researchers from disparate universities to seamlessly collaborate on complex projects. West Arete led a security audit of the Federation Manager’s source code and participated in the initial modernization efforts of this critical system. We’re proud to be an official industry partner of Internet2, and one of the founding InCommon Catalysts.

    • Identity
    • Security
    • Federated systems

  3. 03 /06

    1% for the Planet

    Membership Payment Processing

    Integrated several supporting platforms to provide a seamless and secure workflow for all 1% for the Planet business member payments.

    1% for the Planet is a collective of businesses that have committed to donating a portion of revenue to nonprofit environmental causes. They experienced rapid growth over the past several years, which strained their existing processes. Our team introduced and integrated several existing third-party systems at 1% for the Planet to create a secure, streamlined workflow for business members to pay their annual dues. West Arete is proud to have been a 1% for the Planet member since our founding in 2005.

    • Integration
    • Payments
    • Nonprofit

  4. 04 /06

    Centre Foundation

    Centre Gives

    Designed, developed, and supported a secure, high-performance platform for organizations to host online giving days for their communities.

    Centre Foundation needed a secure and reliable platform for hosting their annual day of giving. As one of their most highly visible events of the year, the platform needed to be fun, engaging, and it needed to perform flawlessly. We partnered with the Centre Foundation to design the perfect system for them. Since then, the platform has expanded to host other giving day events as well.

    • Platform
    • Performance
    • Community

  5. 05 /06

    Penn State University Libraries

    Research Information Management

    Captured the most comprehensive picture of Penn State’s research output in a single system, and published the clean metadata via an easy-to-use interface for other developers to build upon.

    Large research universities face a challenge in capturing and characterizing all the research they produce. The information about new publications, accomplishments, and grants is often difficult to capture and is spread among disparate systems. Penn State University Libraries has been a leader in this space, and West Arete took a leading role in designing and developing the system that’s at the core of their research information management ecosystem.

    • Higher education
    • Metadata
    • Research infrastructure

  6. 06 /06

    California Western School of Law

    Novo Student Information System

    Multi-year project where we created and integrated a Student Information System that perfectly models the way a law school thinks and works.

    California Western School of Law (CWSL), a private law school highly recognized for its work on diversity and equity, found that traditional SIS products weren’t prepared to accommodate CWSL’s enrollment and grading policies. CWSL would have had to adapt their policies to fit the software, which would have come at too great a cost to the school and its inherent strengths. West Arete provided a gradual transition to a system that was designed to integrate perfectly with their existing software and their workflow.

    • Custom software
    • Higher education
    • Multi-year

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