Data Scientists, Datapreneurs the next big thing in the IT market

Data Scientists and Datapreneurs are the next big thing in the IT market, this was said by Ben Mann, Program Director of Africa Software Offerings at IBM during an interview with CIO East Africa pertaining Big Data.

According to IBM Big Data website, Big Data is generated by everything around us at all times. Every digital process and social media exchange produces it. Systems, sensors and mobile devices transmit it. To extract meaningful value from big data, you need optimal processing power, analytics capabilities and skills.

“There is a new, emerging, very exciting discipline called Data Science that is going to become one of the key skills that we need globally, particular in this region. It will attract the best salaries, the future heroes of the IT organizations. Three to five years ago the heroes of IT were the guys who could build the new mobile app. The future, it’s going to be those that can translate what the business needs to do into using the data to understand it,” Mr. Mann said.

IBM recently unveiled the Data Science Experience which is an environment that has everything a data scientist needs to be successful, which begs the question, who is a data scientist? Though this is not a new discipline, it has gained momentum due to Big Data and Analytics with organisations trying to make sense out of the data. To be a data scientist, he/she will have to use their data and analytical ability to find and interpret rich data sources, merge data sources, present and communicate the data insights/findings.

IBM is working with universities, ICT hubs and developers at the grassroots level to ensure data science skills are achieved plus help local developers realize that to be successful they don’t have to build apps there is another path that involves data.

This is where datapreneurs come into play (a word that Ben Mann is hoping will catch on in Africa). Datapreneurs are entrepreneurs who take in raw data, apply analytics, produce insights and sell that data on.

Mr. Mann added, “We need to start acknowledging that there is an entrepreneurial path in Africa that begins and ends with just data not with a new mobile payment tool. The big challenge that we have on building this data economy is data. Organisations have the data but many of them are underutilizing that data massively and in addition they are unwilling to share that data with anybody else.”

The main issue that Africa has is, for many of the interesting insights you want to gain from data no one entity, organization or individual has it all. But until we are able to share data in a way that it is a win-win situation for everybody, we’re stuck at this impasse.

“More importantly more than just one organization monetizing their data is if this data starts becoming available then it creates a market where datapreneurs can take data from different places, apply analytics to it and start to deliver insights. This could create new classes of applications and services that can be very profitable and that is the ultimate goal in sharing this data,” he concluded.