Big Data and Me: experiences from the front line

Sara-Jayne FarmerChange Assembly

April 22nd 2013

ME

Me

• Data Scientist

• Using data to:– connect communities – improve access to information – so people can make better decisions– on both small and large scales

• It’s all about people:– Local people: know their needs; need more information– Local technologists: have skills; need connections– Large organisations: have resources; need guidance

Some of those People

(smart, talented, dedicated hackers in Haiti, January 2013)

My Personal Three Vs

• Variety– Data all over the place– Csv, json, xml, excel, pdf, text, webpages, rss, scanned pages, images,

videos, audiofiles, maps, proprietary. Etc.

• Velocity– Streams updating too fast for a mapping team (100-200 people) to

handle– Pages updating too frequently to check by hand

• Volume– Can’t open the data in a spreadsheet– Can’t fit the data on my laptop– Maxes out my credit card (thank you Amazon!)

VARIETY

“more people have mobile phones than toilets”– UN, March 2013

But… but… there are always data issues…

• Datasets were difficult to find• No data available after 2010• Hard to track provenance – e.g. what decisions did

the people creating these datasets make? What assumptions?

• Data was rounded up• Countrynames didn’t match between sets• Multiple charactersets (e.g. Å, A, Ԇ)• Messy formatting (merges, ‘explanations’ etc)

e.g. Country Names

DR Congo in Data.UN.Org:

• “Congo, Democratic Republic of the”, “Congo Democratic”, “Democratic Republic of the Congo”, “Congo (Democratic Republic of the)”, “Congo, Dem. Rep.”, “Congo Dem. Rep.”, “Congo, Democratic Republic of”, “Dem. Rep. of Congo”, “Dem. Rep. of the Congo”

DR Congo in common standards:

• “Democratic Republic of the Congo” (UN Stats), “Congo, The Democratic Republic of the” (ISO3166), “Congo, Democratic Republic of the” (FIPS10, Stanag), “180” (UN Stats), “COD” (ISO3166, Stanag), “CG” (FIPS10)

And coding

And interpretation

• Hang on… don’t some people have more than one phone?

• And how do you count the people without toilets?• What if the cities have lots of phones and toilets, and

the rural areas don’t? • Where does my composting toilet fit in this?• How big were these surveys?• What do we do with the zeros?• Etc…

And purpose

And Communication

And Alternative Data Sources

And alternative alternatives…

• Social media proxies• Grassroots maps• Etc.

VELOCITY AND VOLUME

2013 Boston bombings

The Humans+Tools Solution: Crisismapping

Find…

Listen…

Estimate…

Geolocate…

Create maps…

Analyse

Explain

Use

BUT WE NEED MORE DATA SCIENTISTS…

Build and Connect Communities

Train Non-Techies

Create Higher-level Tools

Big Data and Me: experiences from the front line

Sara-Jayne Farmerhttp://www.changeassembly.com/

@bodaceacat

MORE REFERENCES

strataconf.com

datasciencecentral.com

analytictalent.com

Tools

Formal (Free) Training

NYC Meetups (see meetup.com)

Volunteering: datakind.org