In a world driven by information technology, ‘big data’ is fast becoming a buzzword. It means data that is vast and varied, with the potential to be analysed to reveal trends or associations related to human behaviour.
All this was discussed in the seminar on ‘Data analytics and business insights’, organised by the MYRA School of Business, Mysuru, here on Friday.
It was a special event to mark the launch of the school’s new Centre of Excellence for Data Analytics and Business Insights (CEDABI). Through the new centre, MYRA hopes to create a consortium of government and industry partners that will provide research problems and data, engage with MYRA researchers and students on these problems and ultimately benefit from the ongoing research of the centre.
“The amount of data from various sources, especially social media, is growing exponentially and we need to mine this appropriately,” said Michael Shepherd, CEO, CEDABI, and also a professor at Dalhousie University, Canada. In his presentation, he explained that data analysis had seeped into every aspect of the economy in his country, right from retail stores to keeping a check on illegal fishing and helping a farmer make decisions about when and where to plant his seeds. “Data is an asset and helps you make good decisions,” he added.
Indian Institute of Science professor Jayant Haritsa, however, spoke about the flip side of big data and its excesses. He said that it had the potential to be viewed as the solution for everything and usually encouraged the wrong questions for which they could be scientific-sounding but wrong answers.
“There is no testing methodology in analysing big data, we have a lot of new programmes that are being developed but most of them are not tested,” he said.
The keynote address was delivered by David J. Kasik, Boeing Company’s senior technical fellow in visualisation and interactive techniques, in the presence of Shalini Urs, founder and chairperson of MYRA School of Business, among others.
A problem with big data is that it could encourage the wrong questions.
