Big Data in Sustainable Development

Huge amounts of data are being created with every passing day.The UN has called for a 'data revolution' to come up with new development goals - so that sustainable development can be better practiced and can be integrated into making decisions and also provide transparency. But finding out trends hidden within data takes skill - and so the question is whether jury is out as to whether nations and development organizations have the capacity to interpret the so-called 'big data' by themselves. The question is how best to make up the ground. The problems faced in implementing Big Data involve lack of expertise to train staff to use big data, and also awareness of the technology needed for analysis. Lack of money is another concern, particularly in developing countries. If governments do wish to see big data used for development, their best bet could be to allow the private sector to do the groundwork. In many developing countries, problems of patchy internet connections, intermittent power supplies and poor reach of high capacity cables are being faced. But the digital divide challenges may be circumvent by other sources of data, for instance, call data records (CDRs).The barriers facing big data becoming a useful tool for development are numerous and great. But, they are not insurmountable. There is reason to believe that big data can fulfil its promise in the years to come. Read more at:

http://www.scidev.net/global/data/feature/obstacles-big-data-development.html