Potentials of big data for governmental services

Abstract

Big data is not a new type of data. It rather describes a set of characteristics and provides technologies and technics to better address specific challenges [1]. Often these characteristics are described as the 3V's of big data: volume, variety and velocity. In 2012 Gartner presented a report about potentials of big data in different vertical industries [2]. According Gartner, governments are dealing with increasing volumes of data that have high variety of structures. Governments additionally have high potential for improving their utilization of so-called dark data; data that is available somewhere in the system but not actively used. The continuous digitalization of governmental services and communication with citizens will further accelerate the growth of data and big data technologies will play in future an important role for efficient and customer centric services. IBM believes in new and smarter big data application for governments and established in 2011 a new research center in Dublin Ireland that focuses on improving ecosystems of cities [3]. In a particular case, IBM created a model that used 2.5 billion call records to improve public transportations in a city at the Ivory Coast in Africa [5]. The outcome of this model has been a 10 percent time savings for commuters in this area. With this project IBM won the data for development award from Orange in 2013 [4]. It shows an interesting use case on how you can use data insights to improve social environments and public services. Next to smarter public transportation IBM also works on improving water quality and optimizing energy costs in urban regions. The investment of IBM in such topics shows a commitment and strong belief of an industry giant in the future of big data applications in governmental services. In my speech I will provide an introduction and overview of big data and its underlying technologies. I then will discuss different areas of governmental services in which I see high potentials of big data application. In conclusion I then present use cases that demonstrate big data application for governmental and health care services.