Big Data for the Greater Good: An Introduction

Abstract

Big Data, perceived as one of the breakthrough technological developments of our times, has the potential to revolutionize essentially any area of knowledge and impact on any aspect of our life. Using advanced analytics techniques such as text analytics, machine learning, predictive analytics, data mining, statistics, and natural language processing, analysts, researchers, and business users can analyze previously inaccessible or unusable data to gain new insights resulting in better and faster decisions, and producing both economic and social value; it can have an impact on employment growth, productivity, the development of new products and services, traffic management, spread of viral outbreaks, and so on. But great opportunities also bring great challenges, such as the loss of individual privacy. In this chapter, we aim to provide an introduction into what Big Data is and an overview of the social value that can be extracted from it; to this aim, we explore some of the key literature on the subject. We also call attention to the potential 'dark' side of Big Data, but argue that more studies are needed to fully understand the downside of it. We conclude this chapter with some final reflections.

FarmTech: Regulating the use of digital technologies in the agricultural sector

“…Several research studies have emerged concerning the use of digital technologies in agriculture, mainly in relation to crops, land and remote sensing. They pointed out that numerous challenges exist concerning data ownership, privacy and security; its quality and the way it is being processed; and the safety of storage platforms (Charles & Emrouznejad, 2019; Hlaing & Prior, 2017). These must be addressed as agribusinesses dominating the agricultural market are already using and implementing data analytics and looking to increase such utilization (Ryan, 2020).…”

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“…Today's complex process of globalization and opportunities created and enabled by Internet technologies and exponentially increasing data (for some information of interest on the topic of big data and associated challenges, see Charles & Emrouznejad, 2018;Charles & Gherman, 2013Charles, Tavana, & Gherman, 2015;and Emrouznejad & Charles, 2018) have enabled changes in the expectations that the civil society has from public sector organisations; in consequence, public sector organisations have gradually been transforming themselves. Marche and McNiven (2003) captured this phenomenon when they stated that:…”

Blockchain Interoperability Issues in Supply Chain: Exploration of Mass Adoption Procedures

“…Big data is dramatically revolutionising today's supply chains (Emrouznejad, 2016). As big data becomes a larger and more user-friendly asset, supply chains are structured to be more data-driven for better service operations management (Charles and Emrouznejad, 2019;Charles and Gherman, 2019). Vast amounts of data are used in supply chains; they can be surrounded by structured/unstructured data, and decentralised and connected data streams (Emrouznejad and Marra, 2017).…”