The ‘Human Development and the Data Revolution’ report, edited by Mark Graham, Sanna Ojanperä, and Eduardo López and published by Oxford University Press features LIRNEasia as a significant case study, detailing our establishment, research, challenges, and lessons learned in leveraging big data for public good in the Global South. Through the Chapter 7 “Leveraging Big Data for Public Purposes in the Global South: LIRNEasiaʼs Experiences”, the report highlights how LIRNEasia has pioneered the use of big data across the Asia-Pacific, offering valuable real-world experiences and a critical Global South perspective on data-driven development. LIRNEasia Research fellow Shazna Zuhyle and former team members of LIRNEasia Sriganesh Lokanathan and Thavisha Perera-Gomez have contributed to this report as authors. For a more comprehensive understanding of our work and the impact on public policy, readers are encouraged to read the report, specifically the Chapter 7.
Today, our CEO Helani Galpaya was on a panel “Harnessing the power of convergence and big data for enterprise success” at a Sri Lankan summit called “Enterprise 2.0: building future ready enterprises” (full video of the panel session is available HERE). I thought some of the ideas she proposed about were worthy of further discussion. LIRNEasia is curently working on utilizing telecom network Transaction Generated Information (TGI) to conduct public interest research using big data. One of her comments was about how companies are not fully appreciating the value of the data that they have.