Central America : Big Data in Action for Development
This report stemmed from a World Bank pilot activity to explore the potential of big data to address development challenges in Central American countries. As part of this activity we collected and analyzed a number of examples of leveraging big dat...
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| Format: | Other Public Sector Study |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC
2015
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2014/01/23110254/central-america-6c-big-data-action-development http://hdl.handle.net/10986/21325 |
| Summary: | This report stemmed from a World Bank
pilot activity to explore the potential of big data to
address development challenges in Central American
countries. As part of this activity we collected and
analyzed a number of examples of leveraging big data for
development. Because of the growing interest in this topic
this report makes available to a broader audience those
examples as well as the underlying conceptual framework to
think about big data for development. To make effective use
of big data, many practitioners emphasize the importance of
beginning with a question instead of the data itself. A
question clarifies the purpose of utilizing big data,
whether it is for awareness, understanding, and/or
forecasting. In addition, a question suggests the kinds of
real-world behaviors or conditions that are of interest.
These behaviors are encoded into data through some
generating process which includes the media through which
behavior is captured. Then various data sources are
accessed, prepared, consolidated and analyzed. This
ultimately gives rise to insights into the question of
interest, which are implemented to effect changes in the
relevant behaviors. Utilizing big data for any given
endeavor requires a host of capabilities. Hardware and
software capabilities are needed for interaction of data
from a variety of sources in a way which is efficient and
scalable. Human capabilities are needed not only to make
sense of data but to ensure a question-centered approach, so
that insights are actionable and relevant. To this end,
cooperation between development experts as well as social
scientists and computer scientists is extremely important. |
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