Prof. (Dr.) Ashok Kumar Manwati
We in India do not find the applications of the basic pure theoretical concepts and never make it viable to understand the tools it provides to other agencies to find the conclusive results that could bring order, peace and prosperity in the society. Whereas the National Security Agency (NSA) in the US is a large employer of mathematicians who apply mathematical theoretical concepts to identify structures within the chaotic and patterns among the arbitrary. Professional mathematicians are producing valuable foreign intelligence of preventing foreign adversaries from accessing sensitive or classified national security information. Experts in number theory, probability theory, group theory, finite field theory, combinatoricstheory, linear algebra are on the list of employment in NSA.
“Data deluge” and its long term consequent is apparent in new area which would give new perspective to understand the basic science laws and bring big business opportunities while analysing the enormous huge digital data available on net. Big data provides big opportunities for mathematical and statistical science as it is an “Era of Data and observation”. The revolution in information and communication technology is another major factor influencing the conduct of 21st century research. The new cyber tools for collecting, analysing, communicating and storing information are transforming the conduct of research and learning. Extracting useful knowledge from the deluge of data is critical to the scientific success of the future. Data intensive research will drive many of the major scientific breakthroughs in the coming decades. There is a long term need of research and workforce development in computational and data-enabled sciences. Wide spread enthusiasm for the data deluge will turn to Anderson’s article in Wired magazine. Few quotes from this article suggest that we are on the cusp of scientific “Paradigm shift” and Google’s research director offered an update of George Box’s Maxim, “All models are wrong and increasingly you could succeed without them”. The scientific method is to build and visualize model and then to test it. These experiments confirm or falsify theoretical model of how the world works. With massive data, the approach in science – hypothesize, model, test – is becoming obsolete. Newtonian model is wrong at atomic level and quantum mechanics is too flawed. Computational and data enabled science and engineering is the new programme. It is widely recognized that data enabled science form a critical third pillar and has become a distinct discipline today and McKinsey’s Global strategy can save billions or even trillions of dollars in US and Europe in healthcare, retail, public administration and manufacturing by analysing this huge data . The software can help give the structure to unstructured data. Big data can be as lucrative as Y2K business for India.
From Angel rounds to venture capitalist funding firms do build big data tools. HCL technology and Cognizant technology have already roped in XURMO as technology partner. An IKEN solution incubated out in IIT Bombay hasbuilt its own big data architecture for open source platform. Algorithmscan go through reams of data and ensure that clients can report in daily basis. Earlier computational costs were high and now after the hardware and processing power have become affordable and data explosion has happened and there is a consulting layer build for statistical modelling.
Now scientist working in biological companies who made medical and life sciences databases simple and creating an engine that can think intuitively for life science and pharma industry. The drug discovery is expensive and the relation of protein to diseases crucial and where the technology comes in and the companies has created the team of bio-informaticians.
Companies are using the large database to increase their sales and big data has translated into revenue. Even government data makes sense as it changes the western economy and so would it do to India. Cost of storage is low and data mining technologies make it easier to explore data. Data available through social media and mobile phones compel companies to do market research and we are at the cusp of change. Cloud computing technology is enabling all manners of digital data to be stored and accessed online where only $600 are required for storing the entire music created till date. We need mathematicians and statisticians, econometricians to do data analysis and reach customers directly. By 2015 the business of data interpretation will reach $25 billion.
We need to introduce mathematical structure theory in our education curriculum and teach students to analyse big data. It would be a source of big employment in the near future. Data scientists are paid by various companies at the rate of $300 per hour.
Whatever new websites review or tweet cannot be gathered easily, new tools are required that give structure to unstructured data. Handling big data needs expertise in volume, variety and speed. The country needs minimum of 1.5 lakh new data experts to come to grip big data. Bangalore based Jigsaw academy are training people to be big data specialist scientist. Carnegie Mellon university professors who have expertise in artificial intelligence and language technology are making machines to understand the right meaning of search queries. We cannot afford universities to wait for long and miss the enormous opportunity for training the human resource that would generate a new wealth. Universities should make priority to accept the challenge in data deluge research.
(The author is former Principal Govt. Degree CollegeUdhampur.)
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