| |August 20169CIOReviewservices like education, healthcare, citizen services, financial services can be modified to be relevant and affordable for the masses. For example, while we can make the entire school curriculum digital but without understanding smart phone or smart device penetration in rural areas, the digital education might not reach the right students. Big data analysis can guide developers to create modules that can be delivered on feature phones and the content can be targeted to benefit the right users.As telecom operators, we have access to a wide array of behavioural data, which hold great promise for ICT monitoring and providing quick benefit to consumers. If used responsibly, this data can help address different societal issues in the area of education, healthcare, disaster management etc. In fact, in 2016 we see this as a key trend - telecom big data will be used more tangibly to help society for the purpose of social good.At Telenor Group, we have used our Big data in privacy-conscientious ways in some of our markets. In one of the countries, for example, we used data to study how human mobility impacts the spread of dengue fever. Telenor Research in conjunction with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Oxford University, the US Center for Disease Control, and the University of Peshawar, demonstrated the power of mobile data to predict and track the spread of epidemic disease.By using mobile phone-based mobility estimates, we could accurately predict the geographic spread and timing of epidemics in both recently epidemic and emerging locations. The study combined the data with dengue climate-suitability maps and estimates of seasonal dengue virus importation to generate fine-scale risk maps. For this study, we took great care to make sure all data was anonymized and aggregated before doing any analysis. The result has been concrete 'heat maps' that help the authorities better predict the outbreak of dengue in that country and thus know where to send aid.Utilization of data in this manner to generate useful insights is important for society, because it can save lives. But doing it right in terms of privacy is also critical, to keep the trust of the customers which is what operators have to be careful about. The awareness of the potential is now growing among policy makers and industry. The United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) and National Statistical Organizations (NSOs) are also looking into ways of using big data sources to complement official statistics and better meet their objectives for providing timely and accurate evidence for policy-making.Big data analytics is a key point of discussion across the globe and its impact is being envisioned in several ways in the future. What is most important is to educate all the relevant stakeholders and decision makers on what analytics can or cannot do, as well as describe the key challenges involved. This will set the expectations right and help in delivering relevant results in any analytics project undertaken!
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