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Unlocking Big Data: experts show glimpse of the future

The LSBU Alumni Association and the School of Business welcomed alumni, students, staff and businesses to find out how “big data” can help companies gain new insights into their customers’ behaviour to make better strategic decisions.

IBM's "Watson" is a cognitive computer that processes information like a human 
Playing cards

Leading industry figures from the world’s largest technology and market-research companies shared knowledge into how data-driven analyses lead to profound results on the bottom line. Live demonstrations and video evidence were delivered to an audience that sat, often in awe, at how technological innovation can influence industrial trends.

Robert Pratt, Data Science Lead at Ipsos MORI, introduced the concept of big data and why data science is crucial to an organisation’s marketing plan. Defined as extremely large data sets that reveal patterns about human behaviour, it consists of trillions of records of millions of people. It would take the same amount of desktop PCs stretching to the moon back to process this kind of data.

Paul Fryer, Academic Initiative Leader for IBM Europe’s Cloud ecosystem, presented the latest developments of the corporation’s natural language system 'Watson.’ This cognitive computer processes information like a human by understanding language and generating hypotheses based on evidence as it goes. Footage of Watson competing on and winning the popular American quiz show Jeopardy was shown as its human opponents were consistently outperformed.

Following the closing speech by Professor Mike Molan, Dean of the School of Business, guests began to network over drinks and refreshments. Data professionals representing a range of organisations from global corporations (UBS, Vodafone, Expedia, Financial Times) to technological start-ups and digital agencies (Aiseedo, ESV Digital, Adcorp Media Group) discussed the potential opportunities and challenges in capturing big data and how innovations like Watson could soon become part of the office furniture.