EMC and Human Face of Big Data

By Corentin Béchade, StorageNewsLetter

In June of this year The
Human
Face
of
Big
Data
project was launched and the preliminary process necessary to its
development were put in motion.

Sponsored by EMC
Corporation,
this experiment is aimed at giving a human figure to the concept
of big data, presenting the concept in relation with our everyday
life and its future possibility. The goal of this experience is to
show through 140 concrete case, how big data is changing our approach
to information and how it could be a factor to analyze tomorrow’s
world.

Started by Rick Smolan et Jennifer Erwitt, this massive,
crowdsourced project wants to show how we can collect huge amount of
data, analyze them, triangulate them and visualize them in real time.

The Human Face of Big Data project
is focused around 5 major theme:

• Health and well-being: Eradicate diseases like cancer or Parkinson
  by improving today’s risk-screening techniques

• Security, criminality and urban life: Regulate traffic, pollution,
  control criminality comparing GPS data and weather signal

• Public affairs: Strengthen election process and reduce fraud

• Environment: Control pollution and save energy by giving visual
  feedback of which devices consume the most energy

• Business and e-commerce: Analyze and improve financial market operation 

To get all the data needed to help the experiment
several
crowdsourced project are launched,
starting on September 25
with the
launch of an iOS and Android App:

• The first step is to reach ‘human sensors’ with an app
  designed for smartphone-owners who are willing to ‘measure our
  world’. By giving informations about their everyday life and their
  different activity the testers are supplying tons of informations to
  a database which at the end of the experiment will look for you
  perfect ‘data doppelgangers’. The experiment will be conducted
  from September 25 to October 2

• On October 2, journalist will be invited to participate to Mission
  Control experiment in New-York, London and Singapore where data
  from the testers will be analyzed and illustrated. An interactive
  Big Data Lab will present innovation and work in the big data
  sector.

• The Big Data Detective project will be launch on October 8 in
  association with TedYouth to encourage teachers to analyze, measure
  and map their world with the help of junior high and high school
  students. Connecting thousands of students to compare and analyze
  the different sets of data, illustrate their thoughts and
  preoccupation with graphics and data visualization.

• And on November 20 the book The Human Face of Big Data will
  be released with more than 200 photographs and article written by
  professional. A documentary will also be released in 2013.

According to Jeremy Burton, EVP of EMC, "The Human Face
of Big Data is an extremely ambitious project aimed at experimenting
the social impact of big data and bring a human face to it"

For EMC this initiative is a way to
show the importance of big data in today’s world and to bring this
project to life by highlighting the flexibility of their systems.