CBS creates new forum for Big Data

Big Data refers to the data explosion that is a result of new technologies. With this new forum, CBS wants to gather committed persons to establish a dialogue on the possibilities and challenges that are a consequence of the use of Big Data. Mikkel Flyverbom, Associate Professor at the Department of Intercultural Communication and Management at CBS, is one of the pioneers of the new big-data-forum.org, which will be launched CBS in the end of May:
- I have been searching for a place, where it is possible to explore the possibilities and challenges of Big Data across interests, and how Big Data can affect the way in which we create knowledge and apply governance, says Mikkel Flyverbom about the forum. CBS has invited two of the world's leading data sociologists, Jannis Kallinikos from the London School of Economics and Evelyn Ruppert from Goldsmiths to the launch.

Forum focuses on critical questions
Representatives from international companies working with social media, public agencies and small Danish companies will also attend the event, after which the big-data-forum.org will be the goto place for knowledge on Big Data.

- big-data-forum.org is the first of its kind. We need a forum like this, because the use of Big Data changes the way in which we run our businesses and society. CBS is a great rendezvous of general and critical discussions, and CBS can also use the collected knowledge to design programmes that match the need of companies and organisations who work with the application of Big Data.

Big Data prepares the ground for help and sales
Big Data creates a number of opportunities in relation to developing new types of governance, such as being able to predict epidemics on the basis of google searches for specific symptoms, map crises on the basis of reporting via text message, emails and internet, and adjust traffic control and urban development on the basis of the specific movements and needs of users. Big Data also creates an opportunity to sell products in a new way, because companies are able to receive information about consumer behaviour.
- Big Data is a way of registering and using the several digital tracks we leave by means of mobile phones, internet traffic and sensors. Big Data, however, does not only refer to large amounts of data. We have increasingly improved our ability to register more things about single phenomena and connections between phenomena, and we know how to combine these types of data in our attempt to understand and predict patterns and movement, says Mikkel Flyverbom.

Please contact Mikkel Flyverbom, Associate Professor, mfl.ikl@cbs.dk for more information about big-data-forum.org.

The project is affiliated with the CBS Public-Private Platform of which the aim is to connect private and public actors with a view to envisage possibilities in collaborations and examine challenges relevant to both parties. Read more about Public Private CBS will invite to more events about Big Data in the future.