NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, May 18, 2017

The world is experiencing a data deluge with millions of devices and things talking to each other. According to one estimate, 90% of this data was created in the last few years only. As Eric Schmidt famously said, “There were 5 Exabyte of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003, but that much information is now created every 2 years”.

This deluge of data provides us with a goldmine of information. With data science techniques, we can slice and dice this information to see where we are, where we need to go, and what we need to do so that nobody gets left behind. Evidence based policies aimed at the most vulnerable sections of the society have high success rates.

The endorsement for this “data revolution” comes right from the top. In September 2015, many member states of the UN recognized “data revolution” as a key enabler to United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, based on 17 key goals. Many countries and forward looking organizations have already made the push towards sustainable development with the help of big data.