How Big Data Can Help Achieve Global Gender Equality | 7wData

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If you were intrigued by the headline of this article, then either you are working in the Big Data & analytics space or you are working as a gender expert driving social programs & policies in the public sector space. Or on a third note, you are someone like me. Someone who is passionate about guiding better socio-economic policies, decision making and investment by harnessing the power of Big Data.

Before we talk about gender equality let’s talk about how big is the ‘Big Data’? According to Forbes, every day the World generates about 2.5 quintillion bytes of data that is 2,500,000,000,000,000,000. That is about the size of 4 Eiffel towers stacked on top of each other. Moreover, 90% of the World’s data has been generated in the last two years alone. The Internet of Things (IoT) has largely accelerated this growth.

EMC states that by the year 2020, about 1.7 megabytes of data or new information will be created every second for every human being on this planet. Moreover, big data is an economic commodity surpassing the value of oil. Data never really sleeps or stops; it is an infinite resource that drives greater economic value if harnessed timely and appropriately. Better collection, quantity and transparency of data allows for a better qualitative approach for socio-economic policies & programs. According to Omidyar Network & Governance Lab (NYU) open data can: a) help improve governments, b) empower citizens, c) create new opportunities and d) helps solve big public problems with citizens and policymakers.

Given the above facts and figures, we should ask what percent of the social sector and government organizations are implementing and using big data & analytics to achieve better global outcomes. When I was a speaker at a major national big data & analytics conference last year in U.S., the representation from Government and Social Sector, NGOs were only about 4%. Topmost industries being private sectors like Consulting, Technology Retail, etc. The private sector largely employs data scientists, engineers and analytics professionals than the public or social sector. The majority of data scientists are either busy helping corporations harness the power of data to maximize their top line or minimize their bottom line for revenue growth and ROI (return on investment).

Most international development organizations lack an understanding of data science, intelligent technologies and lack the presence of quality data scientists. Contrary to this, experts like sociologists, economists and climate change scientists understand the value of data. However, they lack the ability to collaborate across, lead innovation and work with data scientists to create better policies. How else could the Governments have missed the 2008 global recession? How has global warming remained a constant problem for over 30 years? And why should it take the World about 100 years to achieve gender equality?

When I launched 360ImpactData.Org, I was largely driven by two things: a) Curiosity to know how large or wide are the gender gaps, really? And b) Passion about harnessing the power of Big Data & Analytics to tell better, data-driven stories and help drive decision making efforts. My curiosity was timely. The UN released the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 and openly encouraged data scientists to work on it. I began independently, analyzing some of the critical, global gender-disaggregated indicators released publicly by UN and other international development organizations. I wanted to see the data on men and women visually and understand these important questions. How big is the problem, can we size it? How does it affect women & girls? What parts of the World lacked gender development & why? Why did policies or programs succeed or fail?

It is obvious that women & girls face greater gender disparities than men & boys, the global human development index shows lopsided development with women still lagging.