7 ways big data can help improve social well being

We wanted to make our world a better place to live – always. It is big data – one among, that is changing the way the world is today – business runs and social delivery. Effectively, it helps to improve social well-being.

Reports state that everyday 2.5 quintillions of data is being created which contains information of millions of people. Governments gather an increasing amount of data day by day and often question is – are we converting these into better governance and capacity building? Do we leverage these data for improved social delivery?

Today, there is increasing pressure on governments to convert big data into actionable information and for social delivery. We are in a world where every social organization can improve the ability to leverage big data and data science for increased social delivery.

Every aspects of our life is affected by big data – in one or other manner, and some of them really make a remarkable difference. Let’s discuss a few of them – how big data can help improving social delivery.

Improve Healthcare – The industry has improved a lot – whether predicting epidemics, finding solutions for deadly diseases, improving quality of life or avoiding preventable deaths. Behind these improvements, big data and analytics play a crucial role. Today, people are aware of health potential of wearables. Big data contains the data by track sleep, track eating, mood, physical and emotional health. Once data is generated that could give information back to the users who generated it, and create personalized insights – health tips. Big data analytics also being used to decode the entire DNA strings to find and to understand the disease. In early days clinical trails were limited to small sample sizes but now it can be analysed on a wide range of data.

Transportation – Government authorities started to reorganize fruits of big data and analytics. They realize city infrastructure and public transport systems in order to encourage people to walk and use cycle more rather than drive cars in the city. Often in cities, people are suggested alternative route and appropriate driving time. How autorities provide these information? By using GPS system it tracks the public transport and traffic signals predict traffic volumes.

Improve social security – Effective social security is not just a product which can be built, use and improve. Big data is used in improving security enforcement. Different national security agencies leverage big data and analytics to find the terrorists and criminals pattern of crime. Big data is also being used to detect and prevent cyber-attacks, fraud detection, etc.

Improvement of cities – Everyone talks about smart cities. With the help of data about city, governments plan different schemes for development. How much money to be spent and in which area? These questions being answered by big data and analytics. Good part is – a number of cities around the world started exploring big data analytics to being a smart city.

Trading – Big data has vital use in trading specially in capital market. Big data is widely being used for analysing fraud pattern and minimize the fraudulent trading. By analysing different patterns experts predict the up and rise of the financial market combining various data points. Also, there are several real time and near real time reports that are being generated on trading and operations using big data and analytics.

Retail – Big data application in retail often enables them offering optimized price.  And for that, retailers constantly finding innovative ways to draw insights from online and offline data sources. They are embracing big data and analytics to understand their customers, matching them to products or services; eventually convert them into dollars – in one or other form. Retailers analyse various data points – sales, pricing, social, economic and many other to find hidden pattern to serve their customers better.

Personal life – Big data and analytics is impacting every social touch point of a customer – the way we think, behave and act; everything is being monitored and analysed for increased customer service. Many dating and matrimony sites use big data – to analyse the listing characteristics, behaviour and reaction to find a perfect match. They also use these data to improve the matching algorithm.

Exploring big data and analytics for social delivery is rapidly evolving. It offers tremendous opportunities when explored and applied. It can help governments – drill down deeper on the opportunities of big data, and uncover powerful and effective methods for optimizing governance.