The Corvus Magazine 4th Edition | Page 18

The Corvus | August 2018 Data is the New Black Gold Festus Okubor At the dawn of the 20 th century, a new economic power bloc was emerging. One founded on a natural resource – crude oil. By the end of the 20 th century, that bloc was firmly established. Leveraging its primary asset, Crude Oil – or black gold as it was called – it impacted on activities from household and industrial heating, transportation, industrial power generation, manufacturing and pharmaceuticals; there was no facet of modern life that was not, one way or another, impacted by the exploration and refining of oil. The scions at the forefront of this new bloc — the Rockefellers at Standard Oil, the British Royals at BP, the Dutch Royals and the Rothschilds at Royal Dutch Shell — did not merely achieve financial dominance, they acquired economic power that enabled them impact on the world economy. Oil. The 19 th century was transformed by it, the 20 th century was shaped by it, but the 21 st century is gradually moving beyond it, powered by changing attitudes and an increasingly more valuable and widely sought commodity, one with the power to transform the way we connect and interact with the world around us. Whilst oil’s value is primarily derived from its scarcity, this New Black Gold is as powerful as it is ubiquitous, providing competitive value to the companies who are able to 17 Data is the New Black Gold harness and exploit it for and from their customers. In this time of seamless integration of softwares, lifestyle and social networking, the 21 st century is increasingly likely to be known as the Age of Big Data. In the data-driven world of today, the ability to fully harness information from all available data to achieve improvements in product development, understanding behavioral trends and enhancing process efficiencies, and applying same to private and public sector challenges, represents the single most transformative opportunity in the world today. It is believed that the value to be derived from the ability to leverage information gained from big data analytics to achieve innovation in fields of healthcare, scientific research, agriculture, logistics, urban design, energy, retailing, crime reduction, business operations, etc is immeasurable. What makes Data Big? Prior to the advent of the internet, traditional datasets were structured -neatly organized into databases. It consisted of only standard data recorded by the originating entity – say a bank keeping details such as date, amount, payee, check number, etc. Today, with the explosion of the digital economy, data consists of much more than that; banks now seek to capture information on channels used, where funds were spent and on what it was spent on. Banks seek more information to help serve the customer better and/ or enhance decision making. Same can be said of almost all other industries – be it social media, retailing, news streaming, etc. Big data refers to the capturing, processing, analyzing and interpretation of large datasets using advanced analytical technologies to aid understanding, facilitate decision making and enhance projection. What makes big data includes the sheer volume of data that can be captured, the robustness – consists of various types – texts, videos, audios, tweets, shopping preferences, pictures, browsing preferences, etc.; the ability to capture them on a real-time basis and relative reliability of the data. Leveraging significant advancement in digital technologies, data can be captured from a variety of devices – including home appliances, mobile phones, smart devices, cars, and other electronics. The sheer volume of data that can be captured and analyzed is truly tremendous. Put together, these data sets can become extremely large and complex, requiring new tools and approaches to make the most of them. Due to the