HITECH: what if data centers lowered your electricity bill?

Presented by Contemporary Analysis & Omaha Data Science Academy

A Weekly Upskill for Yourself, Your Data, Your Team

July 9, 2026

Issue 119

Meet the 2026 Data Scientist of the Year

And the winner is...

Skyler Meints

Skyler Meints is a long-time cornerstone of the data science community. He currently serves as a Senior Data Analytics Engineer with Dozukie--an AI knowledge management company out of Southern California, where he was recruited to help them optimize data infrastructure for cost and performance gains, build interactive dashboards that help operations teams uncover insights, and develop an ML algorithm that uses machine learning models to detect anomalies and predict outcomes, with results showing if the system is well-balanced with no unfair advantages.

Skyler and Nate at CANalytics in May 2026

*It was a clean sweep! Skyler was also voted 'Teacher of the Year' by students at the Omaha Data Science Academy.*

Prior to joining Dozukie, Skyler was a Senior Data Engineer for DMSi--an Omaha Software company where he led the revolution in their organization using their data to make data-driven decisions and set the groundwork for their first-ever AIs to be released. He also spent 4 years at Valmont helping guide their team in building the analytics base that would become their global analytics platform.

Each time, Skyler built more than just models and dashboards; he built out understanding and buy-in from managers and peers alike, each time leaving the company in better data shape than when he began.

Skyler has taken that love of culture creation to a new level over the past few years, serving as a professor at both Bellevue University and the Omaha Data Science Academy, teaching such classes as SQL and data analytics. He consistently receives some of the highest feedback scores of all of our teachers.

Recently, his exemplary tutelage was recognized by the Jeffrey Raikes School of Computer Science and Management, where he serves as a coach for the students building real-world solutions for partner companies.

He is a father of 2 and enjoys long walks on the beach with his wife Ashley.

In Skyler's own words:

Congratulations Skyler!

Around the Data World

Require Data Centers to Lower Your Electricity Bill

There is a lot of negative sentiment around data centers.

But what if having a data center in your community is what lowers your electricity bill?

Energy Empire podcast host, Jigar Shah has a great article outlining why, instead of being anti-data center, states should negotiate deals that actually lower the electricity bill for their communities.

This is already happening in Indiana and Minnesota.

And research from the Joseph Rainey Center shows that although registered voters are 29% favorable versus 48% unfavorable on data centers, "the opposition is persuadable. Every proactive program tested moved voters toward support. Impose water recycling requirements: net +31 points. Eliminate Tax benefits: +36. Blue-collar jobs: +35. Grid infrastructure upgrades produced the largest raw shift, with 42% becoming more supportive."

Keep reading on LinkedIn

Companies auto-opting users in for data sharing

Both Hubspot and Meta have found themselves in the hot seat this week for automatically opting users into data sharing.

First, Hubspot announced (during a holiday weekend), that starting in August “enrichment data such as business contact details, employer information, and email deliverability signals, may be shared with other customers.” And users would be auto-opted in.

The backlash was swift. Applied AI by the Information put it this way:

What’s different about the HubSpot uproar is that it involves customer management data, which many companies consider to be a competitive asset.

The data include details customers have collected for years and stored in the app about their sales processes, customer contracts and business strategies.

“If that data becomes a shared resource for HubSpot customers, that destroys that work,” said Caitlin Bigelow, chief marketing officer at Blazel, an AI startup that helps companies post content on LinkedIn.

According to the Deploy Backout investigation, this is in contrast to Hubspots previous policy: “HubSpot won't share the data listed above with other accounts.”

Hubspot has since walked back the announcement.

Then Meta released Muse Image, it's new AI model built into Instagram. As part of the rollout, Instagram announced:

"Muse Image can compose elements from many input reference images in the prompt, including people, objects, clothing, styles, and environments."

More specifically, Muse allows you to prompt with the handle of a public IG account.

"People can now use your Instagram photos to generate AI images of you. Meta turned this on by default, won't notify you when it happens, and it's on you to opt out." - @protonprivacy

If your IG is public, here's how to opt-out.

Nvidia's Revenue-Sharing Model

Nvidia can now help finance your GPUs for a cut of what you make with them.

The company launched a revenue-sharing model this week that lets AI cloud providers deploy Nvidia infrastructure without covering the full upfront cost. Nvidia collects hardware revenue up front, then a share of the cloud revenue that infrastructure generates. If a provider can't fill its capacity, Nvidia buys back the unsold GPUs at a set price.

Keep reading to learn about 2 of the first companies participating in the new program: Sharon AI and Firmus Technologies

Data and Tech In Nebraska

Our entire tech team will be in Norfolk later this month for the Tech Nebraska Build Here MicroSummit

This microsummit is designed to explore the question:

"What does the future of Northeast Nebraska look like?"

We're excited for this one because it spotlights some of our favorite industries to work in:

Manufacturing and industrial innovation
Agriculture and agribusiness
Workforce development and education

These industries have historically been left behind in the tech and app era. Now we're seeing our clients in these spaces implement AI solutions faster than software-heavy industries, simply because they don't have the tech debt to work around. We're looking forward to seeing what else Nebraska is building.

Get Your Ticket Today

An explosive weekend

This 4th of July was one for the books. Our nation *might* have set a Guinness world record for largest pyrotechnics display (still pending), and Omaha won for worst air quality on the 5th.

The record for the the largest pyrotechnics display was roughly 811,000 pyrotechnic effects and 1 hour and 1 minute long. The show in D.C. had 850,000 pyrotechnic effects and was set to take place in 40 minutes. For reference, a typical 10-20 minute show uses between 1,000 and 3,000 pyrotechnic effects.

Rumor has it "by the end of the show, you couldn’t see half of them due to all of the smoke obfuscating the view."

As for me and my 100-300 pyrotechnic show, which clocked in at a family record breaking 20 minutes, I'm happy to report, everyone in our household still has all their fingers.

Don’t stop retrievin’,

NATE WATSON

CEO, Contemporary Analysis

CONTEMPORARY ANALYSIS

ODSA

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