Big Data Week Offers Leeds The Opportunity To Shine

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Why Big Data Week offers Leeds an opportunity to shine says Becs Edward (@becs_edwards) …

Maths and numbers in general have never exactly been my thing. I just don’t get them. Words, I can deal with. Ideas, I love. But rewind ten years ago and after a shed load of trying, a lot of tears and the help of a maths tutor, I eventually managed to get a grade B in GCSE Maths, which probably still remains my biggest personal achievement to date.

That’s why if I told my GCSE maths teacher I was involved in a steering committee of a brand new data group in Leeds – Leeds Data Thing – he’d laugh. A lot. Probably more than when he first heard the Fresh Prince of Math-Air (don’t worry, if you don’t get it – I don’t either. It must be a maths geek thing).

But (in the words of Bob Dylan) – “the times they are a changin’”. These days, everything we do generates data – from making a call, to using a satnav or doing the weekly shop. Estimates suggest that 2.5 exabytes of data are created each day, which is more data than existed in the world until 1986. Data’s massive. And unlocking its value is something I find really exciting.

Understanding data can lead to some pretty amazing things– it can facilitate the making of new stuff which can genuinely have an amazing impact, it can help to solve problems, and it can be used to find patterns that nobody knew existed. Working with data is about asking new questions, collaboration and experimentation. It’s all about producing something useful (and sometimes something that’s joyful too).

The crux of it is that you don’t have to be a mathematician or an analyst to be interested in data – you could be a designer, an artist, a marketer, a developer, a geographer, an innovator or an activator – this list goes on and on.

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And that’s where Leeds Data Thing comes in. Set up in February by a number of bods across all sorts of different sectors in our fair city, its aim is to bring like-minded people together to talk about data, network, share ideas, learn a few things and have a beer or two.

The first Leeds Data Thing event sold out within 24 hours –evidence of the massive appetite in Leeds to talk about data and collaborate to unlock something amazing.

The stage is now well and truly set to take Leeds’ love of data to a global stage. And that’s exactly what we’re doing next week. With over 10,000 global participants, Big Data Week is an international festival which is held in over twenty cities worldwide from the 22nd -28th April. 2013 marks the first time that Leeds will act as a host city – supported by Harvey Nash and Basho. Leeds Data Thing, along with Bloom Agency, is at the heart of its organisation.

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With support from a host of different sectors, we’re running a wide range of events across the city during Big Data Week. From a sparkly launch event at Skylounge, to an opportunity for different businesses, individuals and community groups to discuss the data they hold, we’re also experimenting with creating a virtual time capsule of how Leeds uses and consumes data in a day.

The week is set to culminate with a Global Big Data Challenge (27th-28th April). We’ve got a mass of open data about health around the world and we want people to come and explore it and tell the world about what they find. Participants could make an infographic, a website, an app or produce a blog post which cuts through the data and tells the world about it, turning raw data into globally compelling content.

We’ve lined up a team of international data thought leaders from the UK Cabinet Office, the NHS and the University of Strathclyde who’ll decide on the winning formula. Winning entries will be published on the Big Data Week global website and will be shared across other leading worldwide forums.

An area of the Leeds city centre venue will also be set up to provide a demonstration of a small team working on the Big Data Challenge, which means that we can introduce newbies to the world of data exploration too!

Want to know more? You can check out Big Data Week, Leeds Data Thing, and full event listings for Big Data Week in Leeds. Or follow us on Twitter, or hit like on Facebook.