Greetings!
Here is Pere. I hope everyone is doing great, even though world political and economic situation is very chaotic currently. Which also makes us think a lot about many things including small things that we take for granted before.
Our lab members have just begun new lab activity, which is book reading and discussion. The book was suggested by Abe sensei, titled “Data-Driven Innovation: Big Data for Growth and Well-Being”. We will have weekly book discussion session, that each lab member will be in charge of at least one session until we finish reading the whole book. Also, after each session we will write a blog about how the discussion went and what was the key-takeaways from it.
Our first discussion session was held on last Thursday.
Before we jump into discussion, I would like to give a short description about the book. This book is the OECD report (2015) on big data and analytics, and their effect on innovation, growth, and well-being of society. Its goal is to improve the evidence of mentioned effect regarding data-driven innovation (DDI), and to offer guidance for policymakers to help them with maximizing the benefits of DDI and mitigating the associated economic and societal risks.
Nowadays we hear a lot about “Big Data”, and it seems like a big thing for sure. However, there are lot of things that we don’t understand fully, or even hard to grasp the idea about how exactly it is playing a role in our society, and how it’s impacting our lives positively or negatively. By reading this report we can deepen our knowledge about “Big Data”, “Data-driven Innovation” and its role in wide range of social economic activities, including scientific research. For that being said, Let’s get into the insights from first session.
Key takeaways from first session (p.19-42 of the report)
More and more organizations are generating or handling large streams of data throughout their activities. Estimated amount of worldwide data storage has been growing exponentially during the last two decades and expected to grow the same way. Authors emphasized that releasing data as “open government data” not only can increase the transparency and accountability of governments, but also can empower entrepreneurs to develop innovative goods and services. However, there are some issues that the governments need to address, which will be discussed in the remaining sessions. One of the most important terms coming with DDI and increasing use of big-data was Knowledge-Based Capital (KBC). It comprises a range of intangible assets such as data, software, research, and development (R&D), patents, brand equity, firm-specific human capital, and skills (Fig.1). KBC is regarded as increasing foundation of modern economies, and it was found that investment in KBC has already exceeded investment in physical capital (e.g., machinery and buildings) in some countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States.
Authors then described the potential of DDI to contribute to productivity growth, well-being.
Contribution to productivity growth
The impact of DDI goes far beyond ICT industry, and even traditional sectors such as retail, manufacturing and agriculture are being disrupted by it. “Disrupted” sounds like negatively affected, but in fact DDI is boosting productivity growth. For example, in manufacturing, companies are increasingly using Internet of Things (IoT): network of physical objects- “things”, enabled by machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, sensors, and software. This trend is helpful for monitoring the product efficiency and optimizing operations and it can even be used in after-sale services. Agriculture is also further modernized by DDI, which leads to improvement in productivity, and help minimizing environmental impact. Some studies also suggesting that DDI is raising labor productivity.
Contribution to well-being
Authors emphasized that although quantification of the contribution is hard, DDI can contribute to well-being of citizens. They also suggested that science, education, health care services and public administration sectors could have highest impact if they improve the adoption of DDI. Few examples were given for low level of data collection and analysis in these sectors, as well as new technologies launched using DDI. Specifics about new technologies and development especially in health care will be discussed in the Chapter 8.
Insights gained from discussion
Participants: Pere, Augustin, Meg, Masaya, Riho, Taro, Pat, Radi, Tom and Pieng.
Digitalization, good or bad?
Some examples are suggesting that how data and analysis of it can be used in some areas of education, and healthcare seems to be considered but held back, or being discussed, or even sparking a controversy. This came up while we were discussing about how we can assure that to what extent DDI should be used in science, education and health care that regarded as sectors that have low-level of computer interaction, and use of data in this report. Meg mentioned about the controversy that happened when Digital Agency (デジタル庁) of Japan published the “Roadmap on the Utilization of Data in Education (教育データ利活用ロードマップ)” in early January 2022. According to the NHK article reported the roadmap “In this roadmap government aims to digitalize and unify personal educational data such as individual learning history, and class attendance by around 2025 (mid-term of roadmap). This educational data will be shared with schools and educational institutions to improve the education.” After this article has published, it received backlash on SNS, with criticisms related to “privacy of students”, and “increasing burden on teachers”. However, Professor Makiko Nakamuro, who has been a part of this project explained misconceptions about the roadmap and emphasized that the government has no intention of centrally managing personal educational data and the privacy will be protected. This shows that opinions of citizens can be divided for utilization of data, and we need to consider this aspect especially when it comes to big scale social project.
In healthcare, cloud system is also regarded as promising market, forecasted to grow 22.9% between 2019 and 2025, according to “Japan Healthcare Cloud Computing Market 2019- 2025” market report by private research company. Masaya mentioned about its advantages, since in traditional healthcare system, patients’ healthcare related data is only available for the clinics or hospitals that they got treatment.
Data protection in developing countries
Pat mentioned about some incidents related to data protection that occurred in Thai before. Apparently, there were few incidents that governmental websites were hacked, or personal data breach happened. Recent incident was personal information (full name, sex, passport number, residency status, visa type etc.) of 106 million visitors to Thailand was leaked to the internet in August 2021. Likewise, many other developing countries might have more problems regarding the cybersecurity, and personal data protection as opposed to developed countries. Therefore, building a reliable system and strengthening the cybersecurity might be the priority.
Trust issues and data misuse in general
Some other things and ideas we discussed were related to trusts in applications or websites that we use and potential data leakage. There are not a few cases we heard about how some applications misused or sold the personal data of their users. How cookies really work, or how some websites collect our information etc. was also discussed. It was very interesting that we all agreed to that the reading a long list of “Terms of Use” is hard, and users don’t usually read it. We seem to care about our personal data, but why we don’t read “Terms of Use”? The importance of personal data, and how we treat it seriously might depend on type of the information. For example, some people might not care about sharing their heights, weights. However just “Collecting and capitalizing the data of other people”, the concept itself is strange. But at the same time if the data is really going to be used for a good purpose, one idea was raised that “If the purpose and explanation is clear, some people might give consent to use of their data”.
This will be the end of this blog. I’m sure there will be a lot more to explore in the remaining sessions because first session was only about introductory talk of DDI.
Sources
Data-Driven Innovation: Big Data for Growth and Well-Being report: https://www.oecd.org/sti/data-driven-innovation-9789264229358-en.htm
Roadmap on Utilization of Data in Education:
NHK article reporting on the roadmap:
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20220107/k10013419481000.html
Professor Makiko Nakamuro explains misconceptions on roadmap:
https://diamond.jp/articles/-/297329
Japan Healthcare Cloud Computing Market:
https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/5124808/japan-healthcare-cloud-computing-market-2019-2025
Thailand personal data breaches article:
2022/05/16