ess -12/18/12 Technology :: Big Data event points to huge potential

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Retailers reinvented after mall closure We will be ready, Irving says U.S. poised for oil breakthrough New Xplornet CEO plans to keep working in N.B. Maple Leaf sells potato plant to Cavendish for $60M
Geoff Flood, CEO of T4G , right, speaking with Doug MacAskill. VP of Information Technology at JD Irving Limited while scouting location for conference. Photo: Cindy Wilson/Telegraph-Journal

TECHNOLOGY

BIG DATA EVENT POINTS TO HUGE POTENTIAL

QUENTIN CASEY FOR THE TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL
17 DEC 2012 10:30PM

From Facebook posts to Tweets to mobile news updates, we live in a world of constantly flowing data and information. Much of that data is useless, of course. But much of it is extremely valuable. Yet drawing out the important bits is akin to drinking from an evergrowing fire hose: the flow of data is overwhelming. Its coming from all directions, all the time. Were talking about an exponential increase in volume, says Saint John technology entrepreneur Geoff Flood. Its like nothing weve seen before, he adds. The sheer volume of data requires a different approach to managing it and analyzing it
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ess -12/18/12 Technology :: Big Data event points to huge potential

and interpreting it. The sector focused on harnessing and filtering that wave of information is called Big Data. And its a sector Flood believes Atlantic Canada is well positioned to gain from. Thats why his technology firm, T4G, is the lead sponsor of the upcoming Big Data Congress. To be held Jan. 24 in Saint John, the conference will bring together national delegates from the business sector, government and academia. It will also feature leading authorities on the future of Big Data. Among the speakers will be Andrew McAfee, a best-selling author and principal research scientist at MITs Center for Digital Business. The primary objective of the conference is to help people see the potential, says Larry Sampson, CEO of the New Brunswick Information Technology Council, a co-organizer of the event. Big Data is a means of capturing and parsing and dealing with vast amounts of data so that we can leverage that information to improve the quality of our lives and the performance of businesses. As Sampson notes, Big Data is an emerging field within the computer science world one with the potential to alter many aspects of society, from business to health care. Its also a field that New Brunswick is familiar with. Radian6, the provinces best-known technology company, rose to fame and later fortune by helping Fortune 500 companies see whats being said about them online. More recently, the provinces main tech startup accelerator Launch36 helped develop LeadSift. The startup, which recently raised $1.1 million from investors, sifts through reams of Twitter data to generate sales leads for companies. And the potential for further Big Data job creation is immense. According to Gartner, a technology research firm, 4.4 million jobs will be created worldwide by 2015 as companies work to harness and filter the Big Data deluge. Atlantic Canada, argues Geoff Flood, must work cooperatively to ensure many of those jobs are created locally. That will require universities to provide proper training for mathematicians and analysts. Governments must also embrace the opportunities presented by Big Data. As well, Flood is hoping the Big Data Congress will lead to the creation of a Data Science Centre of Excellence to unite the public, private and academic sectors. This is something we can pursue. It just requires a commitment and an alignment across government, academia and industry, he said. Theres no reason why we cant do this here. We have as much opportunity as anybody.
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