Skip to main content

Information overload? There’s a Big Data Consortium for that

A new academic-industry initiative will help chart Canada’s future
November 4, 2014
|
By Laurence Miall


Photo by infocux Technologies (Flickr Creative Commons) Photo by infocux Technologies (Flickr Creative Commons)


The world is awash with data. To name two examples: The Economist reported in 2010 that Walmart processes a million transactions every hour and Facebook is home to 40 billion photos.

Making sense of all this data is critical, not only for businesses like Walmart and Facebook, but also for government agencies, researchers, educators and the average person in the street. That’s where the newly created Big Data Consortium comes into play.

Co-founded by Concordia last week, the consortium aims to help Canada rise to the challenges and opportunities of “big data,” a term that describes the huge amounts of information now available thanks to technological advances. Big data could be highly useful, provided the right tools are developed and Canadians are trained to use them.

“This consortium is critical to determining national needs, both for research and for education,” says Greg Butler, Concordia’s representative. Butler is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering.

Greg Butler is Concordia’s representative in the newly created Big Data Consortium. Greg Butler is Concordia’s representative in the newly created Big Data Consortium. Photo by Concordia University

The Big Data Consortium is a partnership of universities and industry. The academic founders are Concordia University, Ryerson University, Dalhousie University and Simon Fraser University; industry is represented by Deloitte, TMX Group, the Information Technology Association of Canada and SAS Canada. The consortium also has a government partner, Industry Canada, which represents the Government of Canada.

The first mission will be to conduct the Big Data and Data Analytics Talent Gap Survey in Canada. The primary objective is to determine whether a talent gap exists and, if so, to better understand its breadth and depth, then to develop sector-specific as well as cross-sectoral strategies to address it.

One of the most exciting recent developments in big data is the emergence of what is called the “Internet of Things.” Among the most obvious examples are mobile devices, like smartphones, which are equipped with GPS, leading to location-aware apps and services.

But the impact of the Internet of Things can also be seen in high-frequency financial securities trading, cars that park themselves and warn of impending collisions, and in household appliances that are monitored and controlled from a smartphone.

“This is a fascinating area of study with a huge number of applications,” says Butler. “It’s going to be very exciting to see what the future brings. Big data impacts all aspects of our lives. For example — it can provide transparency to decision-making, which would be a real boon to open government.”


Find out more about the Big Data Consortium
.

 



Back to top

© Concordia University