San Ramon Student Presents Research On San Ramon Businesses At International Conference

SAN RAMON, CA — A Dougherty Valley High School student presented research on the resilience of San Ramon businesses at the 2025 ESRI International User Conference in San Diego, the largest conference in the world on Geographic Information System.

Ayaan Patel, 16, presented his project “Business Trends in San Ramon, California, from 2018 to 2024” to GIS experts from around the world. His project analyzed how geospatial data can explain economic shifts. Over several months, Ayaan collected data from over 450 businesses across 19 retail centers and used ArcGIS tools to visualize how San Ramon’s business landscape changed over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I wanted to explore how events like the pandemic affected my own community, not
just through stories but also through data, which is often overlooked,” he said. “GIS helps me visualize these changes and understand how different neighborhoods were impacted over time.”

Ayaan’s research revealed that San Ramon enjoyed steady business growth through 2019, followed by stagnation in 2020-21 due to the pandemic. Business closures spiked in 2022, the year when much of COVID relief funding ended. There was a brief rebound in 2023, but closures spiked again in 2024.

His research also found that retail centers located in high-foot-traffic areas, such as those near major highways or dense residential zones, fared better than more isolated centers.

At the conference, Ayaan shared his research with ESRI Co-Founder and President Jack Dangermond, a world-renowned businessman, billionaire, scientist, and leader in GIS research.

Aayan’s work comes as part of his role on the National 4-H Geospatial Leadership Team, where he represents California alongside top students from the United States. The team is sponsored by the ESRI Conference, Google, UC San Diego, the USDA, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and others.