About Us
“Nové” is Czech for “new”. The story of novéInsights is a tale of navigating into the unknown, using new insights from the best available data as a guide.
It all started in Prague.
In February 2020, Patrick, his wife Cynthia, and their two young daughters left their home in Grinnell, Iowa to explore the Czech Republic together. Their plan: a year-long European sabbatical to celebrate hard-earned professional and personal milestones.
It was not to be.
Just days after they landed in Prague, Covid-19 struck. Skiers on winter break in northern Italy brought the virus back with them to the Czech Republic.
As a concerned parent—and data junkie—Patrick started crunching Covid-19 stats from the Czech Ministry of Health. The trends were alarming. The future was uncertain, both in the Czech Republic and back home. Airports were shutting down. Movement in Prague was severely restricted. Foreign nationals were encouraged to leave.
They left.
Back home and under quarantine, Patrick began sharing his Covid models and trend charts. He published his family’s personal Covid-19 plan. He built his own crude Covid-19 “dashboard” for Iowa to visualize and map the pandemic risk for his family. He was surprised—shocked and horrified, really—by the lack of clear data and insights he saw coming from the Iowa Department of Public Health.
Patrick shared his Covid insights for Iowa and neighboring states on Facebook. His network of family and friends started asking: what’s the threat level in their own areas?
Demand for Covid-19 dashboards that were clear and easy to understand quickly grew. Soon, Patrick was working with infectious disease experts at the University of Iowa, creating sophisticated Tableau dashboards, and collaborating on a phased regathering plan for the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa. When would it be safe for congregants to worship in person in different regions around the state? Grinnell College (where his wife is an associate dean) and other liberal arts colleges took note of this work and asked for help, too.
Patrick pulled in Kenan Pollack, a longtime colleague with non-profit and higher ed experience, to support this growing effort.
novéInsights was born.
Patrick Hansen, Founder & Principal Consultant
Patrick received B.A. and B.E. degrees in Engineering from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College and completed his Master's of Public Affairs at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Administration at Indiana University. Patrick was previously Vice President of Customer Success at TrustRadius, where he worked with most of the leading data visualization software providers. Patrick and his family are based in Grinnell, Iowa.
Kenan Pollack, Co-Founder
Kenan holds a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis. He previously founded a 3D printing company that developed custom parts for health and medical groups in Kampala, Uganda where he was living. Immediately prior to novéInsights, Kenan was a member of the Customer Success and Product Management teams at TrustRadius, a business software review site. He has worked directly in, or consulted for, the non-profit and educational sectors for over 10 years. He and his family live in Rockville, Maryland.