
Opinion
CITIES
BIG DATA: Great opportunities and challenges

Juan Cristóbal García
Senior R&D&I Consultant
BIG DATA
What do basketball, steelmaking, genomics, an autonomous car and weather forecasting have in common?
Senior R&D&I Consultant
In 2009, the NBA began using a video system to track players and ball movement. Today, in 2021, each NBA franchise has a team of data analysts who analyse how competitors play and provide valuable and non-intuitive knowledge to coaches.
Does Luka Doncic shoot more from the left side? Is it cost-effective to facilitate James Harden’s drive to the basket so that he doesn’t shoot so many three-pointers?
This is just one of the multiple applications of Big Data, a discipline that requires new specialists and specific techniques. When we talk about Big Data, we cannot think of spreadsheets nor conventional software applications.
For instance, it is estimated that an autonomous car can generate 40 terabytes of data in 8 hours of driving, which is much more than what a person generates today. The key factors, the 5 Vs, that define Big Data are Data Volume, Velocity and Variety, but also Veracity and Value.
But why do we have so much data now? Wasn’t there data before? In 2001, I was a Six Sigma Black Belt at Alstom, a train manufacturer, and I can say that one of our biggest challenges was finding data and the quality of that data.
But now SCADA systems, the Internet of Things, the generalisation of imaging systems (thermography, video and photo, medical imaging, radar images, satellite images…), billions of mobile phones… We have a huge amount of data at our disposal.
Anyway, having the data would not have been enough for the discipline of Big Data to emerge with such force. We have mentioned the Internet of Things, or mobile phones, but we can also point to cloud technologies and Artificial Intelligence, and very soon 5G. The technological revolution we are living through arises because these technologies feed off each other.
Horizon Europe logically recognises the importance of Big Data, and for this reason we can find opportunities for developments in “Big Data” both in its applications (Health, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Advanced Manufacturing, Security, etc.) and in the specific development of new techniques (whether in data mining, data collection and storage, data cleaning, data analysis and consumption) and in the impact of Big Data on our society and economy.
In Horizon Europe we find 47 topics for 2021 and 2022 related to Big Data. Some of them are:
At ZABALA, our advice for projects involving Big Data are:
Pamplona Office
Senior R&D&I Consultant
Opinion
CITIES
Juan Cristóbal García
Senior R&D&I Consultant
Opinion
SINFONIA
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Social Innovation Area Manager
Opinion
Exclusive
Daniel García
Director of Seville office
News
Opinion
ECOSYSTEMS
Javier Morentin
Director of Innovation and Digital Transformation / Executive Committee
Publication
CITIES
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