The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Big Data

  • ‘Big data remains key enabler of exploring business insights’

    The Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Nigeria Council has said big data remains a key enabler of exploring business insights and economics of services in the petroleum sector.

    The Chairman, SPE Nigeria Council, Mr Debo Fagbami, stated this while addressing reporters in Lagos preparatory to the Society’s 2019 edition of the Nigeria Annual International Conference and Exhibition (NAICE).

    According to Wikipaedia, Big data is a field that treats ways to analyse, systematically extract information from, or otherwise deal with data sets that are too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional data-processing application software.

    Fagbami said the oncoming conference seeks to explore available data to proactively address technical issues affecting the oil and gas sector. The theme of this year’s NAICE is “Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Mobile Technology: Changing the Future of Energy Industry.”

    The conference is scheduled to hold in Lagos from August 5 to 7.

    Fagbami explained that stakeholders would address issues bordering on digital transformation and emerging trends in artificial intelligence; intersection of information and energy technologies, with focus on empowering women for digital age.

    He said the conference will unveil solutions to recurring issues of oil pipeline vandalism and technical challenges in the oil exploration and production sector. According to him, leveraging insights from artificial intelligence, big data and mobile technology remains a key enabler of exploring business insights in oil and gas industry, noting that the forum would also focus on collecting and encouraging the dissemination of technical knowledge and technologies related to the oil and gas industry.

  • Big data for big impact

    Irrespective of the state or level of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) acquisition, deployment, application or development any nation elects to avail her immediate environment, her nationals and residents over time, the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD) is here again like a recurring decimal and as expected, bearing a different name plate or theme that is cognate to the extant level of global technology development and deployment. While this recurrence is only at the instance of its unflinching 31.536 million seconds turnaround time and on May 17 of every year, this year’s event (WTISD-17) marks the 152nd anniversary of ITU.

    The appropriateness of the theme – “Big Data for Big Impact” this year resides in and consistent with the ongoing seismic technology-revolution-in-motion whose formidable and scintillating constituents and composition all of which run on digital rails, have combined forces to change the way we think, work, play and exercise our mental fortitude or grit on the smart way forward in impacting and revolutionizing all our economic sectors for human survival and sustainability. Thus, the consequence is not only big with big impact, revolutionary, disruptive and transformational; it is pointedly bending the curve of human history by any measure or description. The current disruptive-technology revolution we are witnessing in new technologies are in a basket comprising of the ubiquitous smartphone; the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem; human networked brains; financial technology (fintech); genomics (bioinformatics); artificial intelligence (AI) that we use every day without noticing it; and massively connected Intelligent Machines (IMs) that engage in deep learning – a machine-learning technique that is extraordinarily higher in level, style and speed, which are at variance with those of its creator (humans).  The other components of this seismic technology-revolution-in-motion include the modulation of humongous amounts of data (Big Data) that are resident in the capacious cloud (Cloud Computing) rather than the erstwhile cramped and space-limited traditional offices or homes where earlier data issues were and still being processed and deployed therefrom.

    The emergence and incursion of Big Data into the DNA and calculus of business and commerce, alongside other functional sectors of the global economy, have divulged the secret of data analytics by exposing, exploiting and deploying the huge capacity and extensive cognitive capability inherent in voluptuous data with respect to the concomitant optimization of strategic business policies and rules, processes, procedures, best practices, and breakthrough ideas all of which culminate in the conversion of data into actionable insights and, uncovering and harnessing previously obscure and redundant areas.  And the big impact of Big Data in other various functional sectors of human endeavour is overwhelming, incalculable and invaluable.

    From the erstwhile rural agricultural-based modest beginnings of humanity through industrial revolution or first machine age to the current knowledge-based and service economy and also second machine age, intervening and a cascade of variegated and brilliant technologies have been in the neighbourhood buffeting human’s ever-growing searches driven by monstrous curiosity and anxiety in reinventing our lives and our economy in the quest to meeting our permanently elastic and insatiable needs up to date and apparently beyond.

    The burgeoning explosion in data and its attendant derivatives (information) all of which depict Big Data as an umbrella term, which has become a game changer in the business world is not only a reflection of the increasing volume of unceasing activities humanity has continually embraced and engaged in, moving forward, it also throws up our hungry palate for unabashedly increasing the types, quantities, quality, composition, velocity, latency, delivery speeds and timeliness for our ever-growing and insatiable choices that more than ever before, now require and demand more critical analytics, soul-searching and bespoke information for maximum effect or all-encompassing benefits in the long run. This game-changing philosophy or outlook that Big Data with its management including predictions (predictive analytics) has instituted in its wake and trail cuts across and impacts industries of all types (all lines of industries are blurred), organizations, companies, businesses, commercial houses, smart individuals and the global digital economy that is deemed to become more inclusive in the long run. Indeed, fueled by the other disruptive new technologies all of which have combined forces to change our lives to the hilt, data evolution in the last five years has completely changed the way we do business and it currently constitutes an important source of input that is steering, reshaping and navigating the newly transformed business orbit. It is also an indispensable tool for making strategic and data-centric business decisions and outcomes.

    To all intents and purposes, the import and big impact of Big Data on Information Society transcend the boundaries and indulgence of business and commerce, as Big Data runs smoothly across and like strands of spaghetti intertwine with all facets of human undertakings and in the ambience of other disruptive technologies it creates critical development waves in technology-impact-cycle scenarios spanning multiple sectors that are deemed to lead to brilliant, exciting, thought-provoking and out-of-the-box results for the real benefits of humanity.

    Associated with the resulting Big Data technology-impact-cycle calculus are smart cities and homes with all manner of interactive automation; cleaner environments with less wastes and predictive maintenance; ultra-high productivity at integrated workplaces; transformed mobile entertainment; more effective personalized medicine and treatments tailored to patients’ individual characteristics; efficient and responsible social protection system and rejuvenated security services, irreversibly transformed workplaces; geospatial mapping technology that has brought taxi transport system to the doorstep exemplified by Uber services, easy customization of products and services including those of the hospitality sector (Airbnb); democratization of genomic services (bioinformatics) to combat the spread of diseases amongst many others; painless and seamless delivery of financial and insurance services including risk assessment with the aid of financial technology (fintech) that exploits data integration capability (mixing, combining and contrasting of data sets), and the catalogue shops, as they say.

    It is apposite to observe that the forgoing real time opportunities and advantages lead to improved and inclusive global digital economy, as they engender more accuracy and transparency in both public and private policy decision making that were hitherto missing or uncritical.

    Whilst it may be true that the morning shows the day, it is also a truism that it is difficult to know where a revolution is headed while it is still unfolding thus, the long-term horizon or future of Big Data is not fully in the glare as it is cloudy.

    Experts and enthusiasts alike however believe that most companies do not even use the data they have access to. Thus, big data is not better data if it is not acted upon or it is not actionable data. And, as Big Data continues to grow bigger, bigger and bigger to the hilt, many more businesses that are not to getting to grips with Big Data will be in the doldrums save and unless they acquire and deploy the necessary tools and techniques to continually crunch the voluptuous data flying around and growing, and exploiting the capability of its analytics to provide insights and value for productivity benefits that culminate in financial success of business and commerce.

    Driven by monstrous curiosity and anxiety in reinventing our lives and the global economy in the quest to meeting our permanently elastic and insatiable needs up to date, it is no longer gainsaying that human survival and sustainability largely depend on the efforts we continually make in discovering, exposing, exploiting, harnessing and deploying the capacity and capability ingrained in all manner of ceaseless technology revolution at every opportunity as we painstakingly traverse signposts, milestones, benchmarks, landmarks and moonshots in the treasurable trove of inquisition along the curiosity aisle.

    I hereby recommend that, since the emergence of Big Data has not only revolutionized business policies and rules, procedures and best practices towards uncommon financial success and has also made landmark improvements in healthcare, education, aviation, genomics, customer service and finance et cetera, concerted efforts should be made by member States of ITU and her development partners to fully embrace, deploy and harness Big Data in all ramifications and the pursuit of a global development of international standards for Big Data across the board towards ascertaining its seamless utilization and attendant quality improvement that may be concomitant, must be consistent and unrelenting.

     

    • Dr Bello is an International Telecommunication Consultant.

     

  • Big data, big jobs

    Big data, big jobs

    In the information communication technology (ICT) age, global attention is shifting to data which telcos say is the new frontier to explore as revenues from voice declines. Data centres are springing up in Nigeria and across the globe. The emergence of social media platforms such as  Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,  2Go, Yookos and many others, has changed the face of data. Welcome to the era of big data. The management of this emerging segment of the industry promises millions of jobs, Lucas Ajanaku writes with agency reports.

    Whether one likes it or not, big data has come to stay. And with its coming are job opportunities.  Seven fields of specialisation have been identified with very fantastic yearly income that averages about N11.8million. These openings are expected to catalyse the growth of the economy and boost its gross domestic product (GDP). While it has been projected to create over one million jobs in  the United States (U.S), experts say if the current tempo of development in Nigeria’s ICT sector is sustained, big data promises to create twice that.

    Definition

    Big data is a buzz phrase thrown around often, and it really only entered into the conversations of the American public over the last few years. The number of people searching the phrase on search engine, Google have risen over the last two years or so.

    The seven money-spinning job opportunities that big data revolution could bring are:

    Software Developers

    Software developers are people  who create and write computer programmes. They are certainly not exclusively involved in big data, but with each passing day, more people are needed to make the programmes that can effectively and effortlessly collect, synthesise, and process all the data created by these set of people.

    For college graduates with degrees in fields such as Computer Science, Software Engineering, Mathematics, or some other related fields, the future for developers has remained bright over the last one decade and experts say it will remain so for  as long as ICT tools are deployed to provide answers to human problems.

    Statistisc from the U.S. Bureau of Labour, showed that in 2010, employment in this area stood at 913,100. It is projected to grow jobs by about 30 per cent by adding new jobs of 270,900 by year 2020.

    In terms of remuneration, it offered an average salary of $90,530.

    With Yaba fast becoming Nigeria’s Sillicon Valley with many incubation centres springing up and angel investors picking up mentorship, millions of jobs are already being created.

    Market Research Analysts

    Market research analysts are professionals that will work in every industry see revenue stream from the massive  data that is being generated and collected. They are expected to report their findings for businesses to plan with.

    Market research analysts will help companies figure out what goods or services people want; who exactly will buy them and also at what price they should be sold. Since they can work in a variety of fields, from consumer product companies, manufacturing firms, or even banks,  demand for people who can make decisions based on all the data that is collected will also go up. A career as a market research analyst is best prepared for with a degree in Statistics or Mathematics, with course work in Communications or other Social Sciences.

    In 2010, this field created jobs for 282,700 persons in the U.S alone. By 2020, its job creating prospect will reach 41 per cent by adding 116,600 more jobs. The  average salary it offered was $60,570 with prospects of an increase as business grows.

    Instructors

    Post-secondary shool instructors (those who teach students beyond high school) will be in high demand as a result of big data. Although this is the largest and broadest field, there will be more and more students who pursue careers in big data. As a result, there will be a need for people who are prepared, capable, and willing to teach them the required skills they need to succeed in life.

    In 2010, it created some 1,756,000 employment while this is expected go up by 17 per cent in        2020 by adding another 305,700 new job openings. It is also a rewarding endeavour as on the average, the salary in 2010 was $62,050.

    Database Administrators

    It is very vital to have people analysing the data. But if they don’t have secure and sound data to analyse, they’ll make wrong decisions. Database administrators are the people that will use the software and tools created by the developers to store and organise the data that will be used by market research and other analysts in the value chain. While a degree in any computer-related field can set someone on the path of becoming a database administrator, one in management information systems (MIS) is often the ideal.

    In 2010, data base administration created employment for 110,800 youths in the U.S. and it is projected to grow 31 per cent by creating fresh opportunities for another 33,900. Average salary at 2010 was $73,490.

    Computer Systems Analysts

    Computer systems analysts are  the intermediaries between a corporation’s IT department and its business departments. As big data progresses, computer systems analysts become an essential link to help a business understand its current computer systems and make recommendations for expanded systems and processes to meet the ever-evolving world of big data. Since computer systems analysts deal almost equally with both technology and business-related tasks, a degree that provides equal weighting in both is of high  benef, and so often, management information systems (MIS) can provide that.

    A total of 544,400 jobs were created in 2010 from this area. It is projected that job openings in this area would grow by 22 per cent with the addition of 120,400 by year 2020. It is also a goldmine as it paid $77,740 as average salary to professionals engaged in the area.

    Information Security  Analysts, Web Developers, Computer Network Architects

    People in this category of career are used in a variety of different ways. Information security analysts ensure that the data is safe and secure, web developers create websites that attempt to capture the best practices wielded from big data, and network architects ensure that data and information flows seamlessly. Like the others, degrees in computer science, programming or other related fields is beneficial.

    In 2010, it created employment for 302,300 and it is projected to increase its job creation capacity by 22 per cent and open new jobs for 65,700 qualified young men and women. Average take home was $75,660 in 2010.

    Network & Computer  Systems Administrators

    These are the people that help ensure that a company’s computer networks run and operate smoothly on a day-to-day basis. With the vast amount of information collected, both internal and external computer networks will be under increased demand and strain; there will be a high demand for the people who can ensure things continue without a hitch. Often a degree in computer or information sciences is a key point of entry, but a degree in an engineering field (whether it be computer or electrical) can also be of immense help.

    In 2010, some 347,200 jobs were created in the U.S. from this area. This is expected to grow by 28 per cent by 2020 with an additional openings of 96,600. Average salary in 2010 was  $69,160.

    Former President, Nigerian Computer Society (NCS), Sir Demola Aladekomo, said Nigerians lost out in the Industrial Revolution. It will be most unfortunate if the opportunities inherent in ongoing ICT revolution are allowed to elude the country again. This an opportunitiy that should be taken advantage of to develop the country, create jobs for the army of the jobless, and improve the living conditions of the citizens.

    Two years ago,  the Harvard Business Review declared  big data as “The Management Revolution” and a Wall Street Journal report  noted that almost two thirds of companies have invested or plan to invest in big-data technology.  Gartner projects that big-data spending will more than double from $27 billion in 2012 to $55 billion next year.

    Though defining big data could pose a daunting challenge, a recent Forbes article wrote: “Big data is a collection of data from traditional and digital sources inside and outside your company that represents a source for ongoing discovery and analysis.”

    The world has become a connected village with so much information produced that companies are often inundated with.

    IBM reports that “90 per cent of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone.” Every interaction from a Facebook ”like” to a Google search or click on a headline from Yahoo! lends to some small stored bit of information. But beyond what is done on the internet, there is the data generated from traffic sensors, sales figures at small businesses, and the immense amount of data utilised in hospitals about patients to help patients.

    The biggest challenge cited by the managers surveyed by The Wall Street Journal about big data was “determining how to get value from the data,” and the only way to do that is through people. Workers in these seven career fields are the ones poised to benefit the most from what has become the data renaissance.

  • Here comes Big Data

    Here comes Big Data

    As big data continues to grow, the most successful, competitive organisations will be the ones with the ability to turn that data into  new revenue opportunities and operational effectiveness, LUCAS AJANAKU reports.

    Increasingly, technology scholars and analysts the world over are in agreement on the most important technology trends that are shaping the world today. The four mega-trends in leaderahip today are Cloud, Social, Mobility and Big Data.

    According to the Chief Technology Officer (CT), Microsoft Nigeria, Olayinka Oni, there has been a lot of discussion around three of these trends in the country. These are cloud, social and mobility. What has not yet gained prominence, or entered into main-stream conversation and dialogue, is Big-data. Some may argue that it is not near, or that it is still far from us, but some recent developments in the country seem to challenge this notion and point to the fact that the time of Big Data is here.

     

    What is Big Data?

    Oni explained that big data was coined by the sciences like astronomy and genomics, which first experienced data explosion. According to Mayer-Schonberger & Kenneth Cukier, authors of Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think, in the real sense of the word, there is no rigorous definition of big data; one simplistic way to think of it is: big data refers to things one can do at a large scale that cannot be done at a smaller one, to extract new insights or create new forms of value, in ways that change markets, organizations, the relationship between citizens and governments and more.

    In 2012, leading global IT research and advisory firm, Gartner, wrote: “Big data is high volume, high velocity, and/or high variety information assets that require new forms of processing to enable enhanced decision making, insight discovery and process optimisation.”

    To address the challenge of data that is so large that it no longer fits into the memory that computers use for processing, engineers came up with new processing technologies that allows people manage large volume of data than before, and more importantly, the data needs not be structured, such as in tidy rows or classic database tables.

     

    Big Data in aviation sector

    With the spate of air mishaps in the country for example, could big data be of any help?, yes, Oni admitted: “What if our aviation industry and its regulators had capabilities that are able to use predictive tools (basically using mathematical models and historic data) to determine before a flight takes off to a near perfect prediction that a flight may most likely go wrong mid-air, then many air mishaps would’ve been averted. A model that match data that includes weather conditions (like wind and storm, others), data created by jet engines in real time sensors collecting data on the surrounding environment (temperature, humidity, air pressure, others), air-craft maintenance data, number of hours clocked, are needful.

    Regulators are, therefore, able to ensure compliance and safety in real-time by setting up all the compliance rules and safety criteria and validating them against a streaming data set comprised of data from flight sensors, flight management system and vertical navigation system. The system is built to trigger alerts, in real-time, if there is a potential compliance breach, or a safety concern.”

     

    Banking industry

     

    Oni said another occurrence that comes to mind is the banking crisis that the nation recently came out of. According to him, may be if the regulators of the banking sector had capabilities to simulate in a near to real time, the sensitivity of each bank’s Capital Adequacy Ratio to moving data feeds like (both external and internal); Sectoral Risk tied loan-book exposure, Cash Reserve Ratio, Foreign Exchange Rate movement, Consumer Price Index, Loan Account Velocity, Asset/Collateral Cover & Quality, Quality & Sophistication of Loan Management Process & Organisation, Frequency of Approach to Re-discount Window and others. Maybe, just maybe they could have saved the day by knowing the best time to stop the systemic hemorrhage possibly with the right ‘policy-dosage.’

    He said beyond these situational scenarios, increasingly, enterprises are finding new use for big data that was hitherto not possible, adding that before now, when people think of big data, they think of social media and internet sites but this is changing very quickly due to advances in technologies which is bringing to mainstream and within affordable reach the discuss and relevance of big data in enterprise and government.

    Advances in technologies, like in-memory technologies that allow for processing of millions of rows of data in seconds, increased sophistication of analytics software and tools allowing for deeper/greater data visualisation and self-service business intelligence technology (BITechnology). These are coupled with the connected trend powered by cloud & mobility fueled by proliferation of mobile devices

    “Would it be interesting to a CEO of a bank when the banking relationship starts to wane with a particular customer segment; say after a number of complaint and complaint type, in a particular branch, category/location running a particular product based on their social profile (tribe, creed, current status in life, network, others.)? Assuming he gets to have an early-warning signal just as that threshold was about to be reached. This is powerful and business value in that it ensures that organisations get to know something is happening and needs immediate attention before it truly happens and we are left with situational analysis as to causes.

    Would it also be interesting to be able to generate liquidity risk of millions of customers on the fly from their millions of cash flows whilst doing real-time sensitivity analysis using data like exchange rate movement, interest rate and others? A practical example and common scenario that bankers would easily relate to in this locale is the concept of “Follow the Money” consider a situation where all inflow across channels and across locations can be consolidated for the source of the fund to bubble up a new customer to capture just purely be able to leverage big data technology and analytics tools.

    A similar scenario is where a large and unusual deposit into a customer’s account triggers real time alert to the relationship team and contact centre of the moment of truth opportunity to make a new product offer real time. Increasing the opportunity to trap and lock the funds in the bank and deepen the bank’s share of the customers’ business. And you can extrapolate the value of this to other relevant banking scenarios like real time and granular transactional risk-based pricing, real time interaction of data across multiple channels to detect fraud threat as it happens real time in order to provide live responses/action, enhancement of data quality/data cleansing, and others. With the increasing IT consumerisation trend, customers are being preconditioned and stereotyped to expect high level of personalisation in the channel interaction with their bank. Reality is that most of the banks are non-starters when it comes to leveraging big data for personalisation of customer experience.

     

    Business automation, integration

    The Microsoft CTO said another scenario that would largely benefit from Big Data is the increasing need for business automation and integration as a result of the increasing complex status most of businesses have started to attain, most especially in the financial services and telecoms sector. Whilst there is nothing new about business automation and integration, leveraging cloud computing has greatly enhanced the extensibility of what is possible. For the technology savvy, it simply means that he could now expose or call Application Programing Interface (API) securely (whilst selectively gating access to more sensitive data) at scale combining hundreds millions of search terms/data to produce answer in near real time system automation. In lay terms, it means the traditional system automated processes now have the ability to be more intuitive and more granular in deciding and hinging closer to age long desire of business to unlock value from its already sunk huge investment in technology. Imagine for a moment a real life scenario when you have been on a trip for a while and wanted to place a call to loved ones and suddenly discovered we have been cut-off by our mobile operator? Would it not have been nice if the system before it went ahead to cut off your line that you are above your contract level, was able to pull several data and churn same to arrive at a decision, data like the average monthly spend of the customer, credit record of the customer, frequency of roaming, previous customer contact with the service/call centre, customer profile (status, preferences, sentiments, others). Other relevant telecommunication opportunity leveraging big data and Internet of things include;

     

    Criminal investigations

    Oni said another good use of Big Data is in criminal investigation. According to him, Microsoft recently published a case study on Thailand’s Department of Special Investigations (DSI), and its use of big data to dramatically accelerate and improve the accuracy of its investigations into criminal cases. Leveraging better BI and data-mining tools, the DSI was able to reduce complex and manual processes and establish a system that could automatically notify personnel of suspicious persons or activities related to criminal cases. For instance, when many foreign criminals pour into the country and all travel to the same location, or when there is a noticeably large sum of money being transferred into the country. The most impressive thing about DSI’s new big data implementation is the dramatic impact that it had on investigations overall. Before, conducting a traditional investigation could take as many as two years to search for tips, gather, and analyse data. Today, with the Microsoft big data solution, the DSI is able to conduct investigations in as few as 15 days, due to the automated processes, reduced complexity and more accurate insights afforded by the new system.

     

    Judiciary

    The key to achieving greater judicial efficiency is unlocking data so that it can be easily shared, analysed, and acted upon. Today’s case management solutions break down jurisdictional and organisational barriers to ensure that every stakeholder has an up-to-date view of case information from any location, and can update and distribute that data as needed. It’s about getting attorneys, judges, and law enforcement personnel on the same page, through one integrated solution that not only facilitates efficient collaboration, but enables high-level business intelligence analysis through powerful analytics.

    Oni said decision-makers need access to historical justice data to identify hidden trends and make better and more informed decisions. “We have seen the power of case management at work within organisations such as the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP). CCAP was facing resource-constraints while operating several disparate case management solutions across its various courts, jails, and corrections offices, which severely limited information sharing and required redundant data entry at each location.

    To address these challenges and become more efficient, he said CCAP partnered with Microsoft to build a Unified Case Management system on Microsoft Dynamics CRM that brought stakeholder data together within one system, empowering users to easily search, share, and act upon all of the information at the organisation’s disposal. CCAP leaders are now able to extract better insights due to more accurate dashboards and reporting tools, and with manual data entry kept to a minimum, personnel are free to focus more of their time on pursuing justice and keeping citizens safe.

     

    Others

    Other big challenges that can be tackled by big data include; using sensors to better understand phenomena such as weather, pollution, or traffic patterns to analysing massive sets of “nanodata” to model the societal effects of policy, to the fast and low-cost mapping of the human genome to deliver better health outcomes.

    Some persons may say all these is, but another hype from the tech world, agreed some of it may end being, particularly when approached from just a technology purchase/nice to do IT Project standpoint (hmmm, nice to do IT Project is actually something I like to write about soon).