Big data and development: “The second half of the chess board”

A new wave of innovations can come about for two reasons. Soon the marriage of knowledge and technology could put us in a position to decisively change the lives of people in poor countries.

First, the availability of data is rising exponentially. Data volume, velocity and variety are growing at an astounding rate. Today, 90 percent of the world’s data is only two years old. While most of it is unstructured and difficult to search, efforts underway – including through ‘Open Data’ initiatives – will facilitate reusing and repurposing of previously hidden data.

Second, we are entering a new era of computing. “Super-Computers” are being set-up everywhere (including one in Nairobi), which can process an unimaginable amount of data. More importantly, qualitative breakthroughs should soon allow us to use computers to model the behavior of the human brain. This is also called “cognitive computing”, allowing systems to learn, adapt, and ultimately hypothesize and suggest answers. IBM’s Watson is one of these new computes already becoming famous after beating the most successful human players of the game “Jeopardy”.

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