Disasters are dangerous, but Big Data can help improve disaster relief and preparedness to cut back on lives lost and community damage. Historically, public policies have proved ineffective in providing adequate help for disaster-stricken citizens. A year after hurricane Harvey in 2017, for example, residents are still in the midst

Global warming. For a topic as massive, important, and (somehow) controversial, big data is a clear option for sorting through the muck. What information is reliable? What solutions are realistic? When a global issue pits the future of humanity against, well, everything humanity is accustomed to, facts are vital. Big

‘Disruption’ is a pretty well-worn term these days, mentioned at least three times in the first five sentences of any tech blog and thrown around liberally at any good Silicon Valley hackathon. Up until relatively recently, the efforts of data-led disruption were directed squarely at consumers and changing the way

The Internet of Things (IoT) has taken off and is slowly revolutionising the world we live in. Smartphones, smart cars, even smart fridges – all now boast connectivity designed to make our lives easier and more efficient. This is expanding to a citywide scale, with over one billion connected devices

Energy is a huge conversation and big data is already being used to make incredible changes. It’s leveraged to create better oil and gas practices, keep better tabs on expenditures, and even ramp up the renewable energy movement. With not just one, but countless companies integrating big data practices, the

On June 6th, 2015 Big Data Utah and the Boulder/Denver Big Data Users Group (BDBDUG) kicked off the Global Data Competition, an inaugural event focused on climate change and split into 22 regions around the world. The competition has two phases, each with a scoring system that allows solutions to be

When both NASA and the Pope are speaking out about climate change, you know something is up. Yesterday the NASA Earth Exchange (NEX) unveiled a public data set showing how rainfall, temperature and CO2 levels will change over the next 85 years. The high-resolution data, which is as granular as

Utility Consumption Analytics outfit, Verdafero, has announced the utilization of IBM’s open cloud platform, Bluemix to power its analytics platform. “Switching our development to the Bluemix platform has been a game changer,” noted Dr. Alastair Hood, CEO, Verdafero. “We wanted a solution that would allow our infrastructure to grow and

Big Data marches towards more imminent expansion this time as Chinese web services outfit Baidu announces that it is working in tandem with The United Nations Development Programme to build a big data lab together. The agenda includes exploring solutions to global issues such as environmental protection, health, education, and

In Western Ontario, Canada researchers have (with the help of IBM Canada) set out to gather unprecedented amounts of data on the Grand River, specifically an 80 sq. km stretch near Waterloo, Ontario. That data is, in part, supplying information about the change in volume and quality of water, allowing predictions