of ordinary software to capture, store, manage and analyze.
McKinsey Global Institute states flatly, “We are generating so much data today that it is physically impossible to store it all.” These facts of digital life today make the old maxim, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” even more difficult to put into practice. New tools, new software and especially new skills are needed to mine, manage and salvage big data.
Big Data in the Classroom
Charlotte’s leader in big data education is Dr. Yi (pronounced Yee) Deng. He is dean and professor of the College of Computing and Informatics at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. Deng and his 60 plus faculty members oversee the education of 1,400 computing and informatics majors and grad students, the next generation of technologists and big data miners.
“Every day we generate nine times as much information as in all of the libraries in the United States combined,” says Deng. “Ninety percent of the world’s data have been generated in the last two years.” That’s information from cell phones, iPads, wireless devices, emails and computers plus old fashioned information in the form of reports, messages, television, radio and books. To further drive home the point, Deng adds that this massive data avalanche doubles every two years.
In May, Deng and his associates hosted a major big data conference at the Ritz Carlton. Charlotte Informatics 2012: Competing + Winning through Analytics attracted over 300 local and regional business leaders. The conference panelists discussed Informatics as it refers to big data, analytics, visualization and a host of other IT-related terms that describe the collection and analysis of data in new ways to drive strategic business insights.
Deng emphasizes that Informatics is one of the most important areas of study emerging today. Then he adds a wakeup call: “Companies that employ informatics in the strategy and management of their businesses are outgrowing and outperforming their competitors.”
To drive home the point, Deng cites a big data example presented at the conference—one closer to home than Madrid’s emergency response system. “Computers can sift through mountains of bank transactions,” he says, “and detect a few odd or questionable ones.” In the past, officials had to visually examine paper records to uncover fraud or the rare money laundering scheme. Today, for bankers armed with informatics programs and visualization techniques, fraudulent transactions stand out like buying unscented lotion at Target.
Supply, Demand, Skills
UNC Charlotte teaches informatics and computer science at the undergraduate and graduate level, but they are not the Queen City’s only big data educator. Northeastern University in Charlotte offers an MBA in health informatics as a hybrid program. Six MBA students currently study big data online and on the ground, says Assistant Dean of the Graduate Program in Computer Science Bryan Lackaye. Speaking about the program in Boston, Northeastern’s main campus, “We can’t graduate students fast enough for the jobs available,” says Lackaye.
UNC Charlotte’s professional science master’s degree in bioinformatics interdisciplinary program would never be confused with an MBA. It emphasizes biology, chemistry, mathematics, statistics, computing, informatics and engineering.
Given such a rigorous program, it is no wonder these multitalented graduates are in demand. “Eighty companies have come to recruit,” says Deng. “Some are hiring 20 to 30 of our grads. Others need two or three. Demand exceeds supply.” Unfortunately, cuts to UNC Charlotte’s budget are only exacerbating the supply of what has become a scarce and important human resource.
Note that there’s one key discipline missing from the UNC Charlotte’s current informatics curriculum—business. Deng and Steve Ott, dean of UNC Charlotte’s Belk College of Business, are taking steps to combine education in business and informatics. A new North Carolina Initiative for Data Science and Analytics (NC-DSA) is in place linking the Belk College and the College of Computing and In