You must have seen those files – brown, dusty and bound with ropes. Not a few number of government establishments have them stacked in various rooms and in spaces of different cabinets. While their regular use lasted, they were the sources from where data were gathered. The private sector also had its fair share of this. To get data about a particular trend and process to information, individuals have to scour through them for days, sometimes month before establishing the various needs. It was the only means through which statistics could be made available. And statistics are the perfect tool needed to pour through trends and understand why certain things are the way they are. They equally are the means through which future habits or events can be fairly predicted.
The internet has changed all of these and interconnectedness has given rise to what is in information, communication and technology parlance called Big Data. Big Data is the phrase used to explain the collection of huge and complex data-sets that are complex to process using on-hand database management tools or traditional processing applications. It is the exponential growth and availability of data, both structured and unstructured. With it, there is the advantage of having more accurate analysis. This in turn can lead to better operational structure and robust decisions capable of imparting positively on revenue for organisations. The new challenge about Big Data remains how to manage it and in a country like ours, what should we do with it. There is the unstructured data streaming in from social media at an unprecedented speed and these data come in various formats – text, document, audio, financial transaction, video, picture and so on. The concern now is not having these data but making sense of it; that way, companies, individuals and government can begin to know what works and what does not work. Big data requires high-performance analytics to process and figure out what is important and what is not. Information that counts is the goal of using Big data and this only happens with Big data analytics tool. With Big data, there is no point collecting and storing terabytes of data if they cannot be analysed in full context or if time would have to be wasted in getting results from the data. Technological advances make it possible for organisations to make the most of it as they are now cheap, processes faster, have abundant storage, cloud computing existence and affordable open source and even distributed through Big Data platforms like Hadoop.
Big data is the new go-to tool used by firms in the financial sector and mostly telecommunication system in a bid to increase profit and boost productivity. According to a global 2013 Microsoft commissioned survey, 90% of countries around the world have a budget for Big Data, about half (51%) are in the middle of a Big Data solution, 72% have started planning the process and 13% have Big Data up and running. The figure is however still low in Nigeria due to a lack of stability in the power supply, on-going issues with network infrastructure latency, problems with maintenance and security of data centres, along with a lack of data protection laws. Sustainable cloud-based solution would need reliable power supply and dependable connectivity. And there is the mortal fear of data security. Big data is responsible for the kind of adverts you see when surfing the net; the banner ads and links attest to this. See it this way – someone knows what you do and possibly can predict why you do them and targets adverts that you will likely be interested in at you. And of course, someone has paid to make that happen. Companies literally drool over consumer data in their roles as data custodians. Some of the ads may not be related to previous search though, it is Big Data at work predicting possible future pattern. Using algorithms, companies are analyzing Big Data in order to see patterns in human behaviour, and deploy same for target marketing. The idea of Big Data is to learn from a large body of information things that we could not comprehend when we used only smaller amounts. It is an unspoiled blend of technology, science, sociology, business and psychology.
Legal concerns however also surround Big Data use. This borders on privacy and the intellectual propriety rights in the data being acquired and used. There is equally concern around the vulnerability of Big Data. There are chances of errors in prediction given the dynamism of humans. Historians would remember that the cold war era was information driven. Whoever has information has power and there is the continued fear of those who hold too much of it.
Nigeria needs to join the rest of the world in using this huge technological phenomenon in making forecast about her future. It holds a huge potential in all sectors given that with data availability there will be that competitive advantage in quick analysis of current problems and even future ones. We will need to start from our data collection habits. If we still have problems around basic data about human population, it is sure going to be difficult to know more complex ones since that is what Big Data relies on. With an emerging technology market especially patronised by young people, it is important to begin to provide the skills that Big Data use (will) require. With this, there are huge chances that the country can become dependable and independent in Big Data exploit and analytics and also export such skills to other countries on the continent. The prediction is that by 2015, Big Data demand will create more than 4.4 million jobs and only a third of it will be filled due to limited skills. With proper research and development plans in place, Nigeria may yet provide solutions to her own problems whilst also providing employment to her large and young population.
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