Big Data could be the key to unlocking Africa’s developmental prospects
The fourth industrial revolution will give rise to a new job market
Progress and innovation are no longer hindered by the ability to collect data but by the ability to manage, analyse, summarise, visualise, and discover knowledge from the collected data in a timely and scalable fashion. We are in the midst of what is being called the Fourth Industrial Revolution: a revolution of digital, physical and biological systems.
In this new era, the “Big Data” industry, which has the ability to access, analyse and use massive volumes of data through specific technology, requires a whole new army of data workers globally, leaving IT organisations with quite a challenge.
According to statistics presented in a recent public lecture by Professor Bheki Twala, director at the Institute of Intelligent Systems at the University of Johannesburg (UJ), in 2015 there were 4.4 million IT jobs in Big Data (1.9 million in the US) and by 2018 the US would face a deficit of 192 000 data scientists against its requirement of 490 000 additional resources. India would require a minimum of 100 000 data scientists in the next couple of years, in addition to data analysts and data managers, to support the fast emerging Big Data space, said Twala.
Being a data scientist will be one of the sexiest jobs of the 21st Century. IBM predicts that the demand for data scientists will soar 28% by 2020, that jobs requiring machine learning skills are paying an average of R1 522 128, and 59% of all Data Science and Analytics (DSA) job demand will be in finance and insurance, professional services, and IT.
Outside of opening a number of career paths and creating employment, Big Data allows for improved business performance, can readily assist with customer needs, and opens up a world of research developments.
The big question Twala asks, is: “Has the world of Big Data forgotten Africa?”
According to the professor, the Big Data world is not captured evenly. Africa presents a glaring blank hole in so many of the world’s datasets — for example, Facebook’s original Trending Topics feed being almost completely devoid of news sources from Africa. So, if people aren’t talking about Africa, and aren’t searching about it, and Western online and television news media aren’t covering the continent, does this mean there simply isn’t much to cover there?
Twala says that, with a special focus on Africa and the addition of technologies such as machine translation, it is possible to bring the continent back into the view of Big Data analytics. He says that there needs to be a greater emphasis within the data sciences community on expending the effort to ensure that the datasets we use are geographically representative of the entire world.
Big Data could be the key to unlocking Africa’s development prospects. Twala says we need to harness certain technologies with more zeal, and in more innovative ways, because African corporations and government institutions cannot afford to miss the lucrative opportunity of Big Data, to fill the skills gap in Africa. Leading economies struggle to fill the skills gap for Big Data professionals. Such a gap in Africa may prove to be even harder to fill, with significantly fewer students opting for education tailored for Big Data.
Twala insists that a culture that supports Big Data must be adopted. Africa needs specialists who are proficient in Big Data techniques, and universities on the continent need to start teaching how Big Data can be used to find solutions to scientific problems, so that African enterprises will be part of those leading the pack of the 4th Industrial Revolution.
Twala says it is essential that an efficient distribution of resources by African governments may be needed to ensure that Big Data has its place in Africa’s economies. With over half of the predicted $3-trillion available to be earned through Big Data in countries outside Europe and the US, the race for sovereignty will only become more intense.
So, are maths skills enough to be a Data Scientist? Data scientist skills range from statistical theory to programming, the ability to build data models, and ability to work with systems that can process large amounts of data, including communication skills to help clients understand the needs at the beginning of a project and to present results at the end.
The Institute for Intelligent Systems at UJ has a team of the world’s finest researchers in management, healthcare and computer sciences, all charged with the herculean task of finding new ways to use Big Data. Professor Qing-Guo Wang, an internationally renowned electrical engineering researcher who’s worked with UC Berkeley, Cambridge, and the Singaporean Ministry of Defence, is working with Twala to resolve Africa’s most pressing issues and facilitate development on the continent. Every day, they work with industry, government, and local communities, as well as other research centres, to develop patents, carry out ground-breaking new research and find solutions.