The Center for Data Sciences (CDS) at the Karachi Institute of Technology & Entrepreneurship (KITE) aims to introduce Pakistan to the concept of “Big Data.” This premiere project of KITE’s Technology Incubation Center (TIC) – the CDS is positioned to not only conduct innovative research in Pakistan but to also serve the industry by solving business problems through the application of advanced anal
ytics. What is Big Data? Every day, we create about 2.5 billion gigabytes of data. Consider that 90% of the data that presently exists has been created in the last two years alone. This data comes from everywhere – sensors used to gather climate information, content posted & shared on social media, digital pictures and streaming videos, purchase transaction records, and cell phone signal data to name a few. This is Big Data – data sets that are too complex to be accessed through traditional database techniques. Although Big Data is a fairly new concept, it has already started making waves in the IT world. According to Forbes.com [Source], 92% of companies that sufficiently used Big Data exceeded their goals. Big Data has shown to positively impact businesses in virtually every sector of the economy and holds great promise for the business landscape of the future. In order to unlock the powerful potential of Big Data, the world needs researchers and professionals skilled at developing automated methods of analyzing Big Datasets and drawing meaningful conclusions from it. These individuals are called “data scientists,” and the CDS aims to be a leading hub of such scientists in Pakistan.
