By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
SmartData Collective
  • Analytics
    AnalyticsShow More
    predictive analytics in dropshipping
    Predictive Analytics Helps New Dropshipping Businesses Thrive
    12 Min Read
    data-driven approach in healthcare
    The Importance of Data-Driven Approaches to Improving Healthcare in Rural Areas
    6 Min Read
    analytics for tax compliance
    Analytics Changes the Calculus of Business Tax Compliance
    8 Min Read
    big data analytics in gaming
    The Role of Big Data Analytics in Gaming
    10 Min Read
    analyst,women,looking,at,kpi,data,on,computer,screen
    Promising Benefits of Predictive Analytics in Asset Management
    11 Min Read
  • Big Data
  • BI
  • Exclusive
  • IT
  • Marketing
  • Software
Search
© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: How Data and Analytics Can Help the Developing World
Share
Notification Show More
Latest News
ai digital marketing tools
Top Five AI-Driven Digital Marketing Tools in 2023
Artificial Intelligence
ai-generated content
Is AI-Generated Content a Net Positive for Businesses?
Artificial Intelligence
predictive analytics in dropshipping
Predictive Analytics Helps New Dropshipping Businesses Thrive
Predictive Analytics
cloud data security in 2023
Top Tools for Your Cloud Data Security Stack in 2023
Cloud Computing
become a data scientist
Boosting Your Chances for Landing a Job as a Data Scientist
Jobs
Aa
SmartData Collective
Aa
Search
  • About
  • Help
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
SmartData Collective > Data Management > Best Practices > How Data and Analytics Can Help the Developing World
AnalyticsBest PracticesBig DataSocial Data

How Data and Analytics Can Help the Developing World

tkorte
Last updated: 2014/07/19 at 6:29 PM
tkorte
8 Min Read
Image
SHARE

ImageWhile commentators routinely discuss the opportunities for the United States and many other developed countries to use data and analytics to improve the lives of their citizens, the many opportunities for data to transform the developing world are less well-known.

ImageWhile commentators routinely discuss the opportunities for the United States and many other developed countries to use data and analytics to improve the lives of their citizens, the many opportunities for data to transform the developing world are less well-known. Projects spanning big and small data, from complex approaches like modeling disease diffusion to simple analyses enabled by newly open government data, have begun to crop up across developing countries and at international organizations such as the United Nations’ Global Pulse project, and they can help improve the quality of life in the developing world in at least four main areas: public health, public safety, government services, and agriculture.

First, data can be used to keep people healthy. With the help of IBM, the city of Tshwane, South Africa piloted a crowdsourced app known as WaterWatchers that lets users report water supply information, such as faulty pipes, through SMS. As a result, IBM found that the city was losing almost $30 million in wasted water annually. A similar effort by Cipesa, a Kampala-based communications technology non-profit, allows journalists and citizens to monitor and document health services delivery in Northern Uganda with a mobile app, in order to identify discrepancies in official reports and drive infrastructure improvement efforts. Researchers have also demonstrated using techniques from network theory to find the source of disease outbreaks and other public health epidemics. Using a modeling technique originally developed to locate an individual phone from multiple cell tower signals, researchers from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland showed it was possible to trace the origin of a 2000 South African cholera outbreak. This would allow public health organizations and local authorities to identify at-risk populations for fure outbreaks. Although the technique is still new, there are other active efforts to model epidemics in Africa, such as those spearheaded by the South African Center for Epidemiological Modeling and Analysis. Other public health efforts use fingerprint sensors to track children’s’ vaccination histories, such as VaxTrac, a vaccination registry created by New Mexico-based biometric authentication company Lumidigm. Using that registry, which can be operated using low-cost mobile devices, doctors can access patients’ past vaccination histories reliably and securely to personalize care.

Second, data can be used to prevent crime and improve public safety. There have been a number of efforts to use data to forecast civil unrest, such as a team at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum mining Twitter data to anticipate political violence and a group at the University of Sydney using machine learning to predict mass atrocities. Researchers have also explored using remote sensing, such as a University of British Columbia study that used Google Earth images to identify illegal fishing structures on Iran’s Persian Gulf coast and estimate illicit fishing rates in the region. Perhaps the most widely deployed of data-driven efforts to promote public safety are crisis maps, which draw from a range of sources, including local citizen reports, remote volunteers’ map annotations, social network data, and environmental data, to aid emergency responders and journalists in times of natural disaster or war. Crisis maps have been deployed during dozens of events worldwide, including the 2012 Haiti earthquake and the 2010 Pakistan floods.

More Read

predictive analytics in dropshipping

Predictive Analytics Helps New Dropshipping Businesses Thrive

Utilizing Data to Discover Shortcomings Within Your Business Model
Small Businesses Use Big Data to Offset Risk During Economic Uncertainty
The Importance of Data-Driven Approaches to Improving Healthcare in Rural Areas
Analytics Changes the Calculus of Business Tax Compliance

Third, data can improve government services. The World Bank’s Systems Approach to Better Education Results (SABER) program collects data on the policies and institutions of education systems around the world to encourage comparisons and identify where individual countries may be most in need of interventions. The bank is piloting the program in three Nigerian states and has identified several specific areas where education policies differed from global best practices, including poor teacher allocation and difficulty reporting budgetary problems to education authorities. The states’ governments have adopted some of the SABER recommendations and are currently working to implement the new policies. Another World Bank program in the Philippines targets public transit provisioning and urban congestion. The bank built a database of public transit data in Manila to help authorities map transit routes and identify gaps and overlaps, and developed a platform for local authorities to digitally track road accidents, which it will eventually map to help the local government identify dangerous areas and prioritize safety personnel. San Francisco-based startup Premise focuses on improving macroeconomic data quality to help inform government policies and economic development initiatives. The company scrapes price data online and collects it from city residents with a mobile app to create a consumer price index that is timelier than official sources. It has launched its partially crowdsourced consumer price index in several regions around the world, including India and parts of Africa and Southeast Asia.

Finally, data can help improve agriculture in countries with widespread food insecurity or where harvests are uncertain. The Grameen Foundation, a microfinance non-profit, partnered with the data analytics company Palantir in 2012 to analyze geo-located soil samples from Uganda and map the spread of crop and livestock blight. The groups hope their analysis can be extended to create an alert system for farmers who might be affected by such outbreaks in time for them to insure their holdings or take safety measures. Nairobi-based Gro Ventures is building a data platform for the African agriculture sector that integrates information on crops and environmental factors to improve credit models and give banks the confidence to lend to farmers. One of the company’s offerings based on the platform lets multiple farmers pool their data to apply for collective loans for shared tractors and other equipment.

A wide variety of initiatives already target public health, public safety, government services, and agriculture in the developing world, and data analytics will not replace them. Instead, data offers a means of making traditional efforts more efficient, as in the case of IBM’s crowdsourced water monitoring system that operated without the need (or expense) of a central inspection authority. Data analysis can also help draw attention to crucial development factors traditional efforts may have missed, as in the case of the World Bank’s education policy benchmarking system. Nontraditional data sources can help governments in developing countries supplement traditional data collection infrastructure, as in the case of the crisis mapping effort that draws from social media information to aid first responders during emergencies. In short, development groups should take note of the new opportunities data affords to help them do their jobs more effectively and efficiently and strive to integrate analytics to ensure better outcomes for the citizens of the countries they work with.

This post was originally published on the Center for Data Innovation website.

tkorte July 19, 2014
Share this Article
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn
Share

Follow us on Facebook

Latest News

ai digital marketing tools
Top Five AI-Driven Digital Marketing Tools in 2023
Artificial Intelligence
ai-generated content
Is AI-Generated Content a Net Positive for Businesses?
Artificial Intelligence
predictive analytics in dropshipping
Predictive Analytics Helps New Dropshipping Businesses Thrive
Predictive Analytics
cloud data security in 2023
Top Tools for Your Cloud Data Security Stack in 2023
Cloud Computing

Stay Connected

1.2k Followers Like
33.7k Followers Follow
222 Followers Pin

Sign Up for Our Newsletter

Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!

[mc4wp_form id=”1616″]

You Might also Like

predictive analytics in dropshipping
Predictive Analytics

Predictive Analytics Helps New Dropshipping Businesses Thrive

12 Min Read
utlizing big data for business model
Big Data

Utilizing Data to Discover Shortcomings Within Your Business Model

6 Min Read
big data use in small businesses
Big Data

Small Businesses Use Big Data to Offset Risk During Economic Uncertainty

7 Min Read
data-driven approach in healthcare
Analytics

The Importance of Data-Driven Approaches to Improving Healthcare in Rural Areas

6 Min Read

SmartData Collective is one of the largest & trusted community covering technical content about Big Data, BI, Cloud, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, IoT & more.

giveaway chatbots
How To Get An Award Winning Giveaway Bot
Big Data Chatbots Exclusive
AI and chatbots
Chatbots and SEO: How Can Chatbots Improve Your SEO Ranking?
Artificial Intelligence Chatbots Exclusive

Quick Link

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Follow US

© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.

Removed from reading list

Undo
Go to mobile version
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?