Quilt is a data community. Quilt users can crowdsource data collection, taxonomy, and entity resolution, leading to a multiplier effect on productivity. Quilt does for data what Github does for source code: anyone can create a data repository, share it, and discover related data. Quilt gives the everyday knowledge worker the powers of a data scientist by making complex data operations available through a Dropbox-like interface. Knowledge workers can spend more time gathering insights and less time on menial data operations. Quilt connects with apps like R, Excel, and Tableau, & offers API access for advanced users.
The beachhead market for Quilt is genomics, where there is already an active community, and a vast honeypot of data. Users at the National Cancer Institute and beyond save hours of time each week thanks to Quilt. Quilt integrates gene data operations, similar to bedtools, so that researchers can avoid the command-line and rapidly iterate between analysis and insight.