Big Data. I know, you’re totally sick of this topic. The chatter about Big Data is just numbing - even the Harvard Business Review joined the chorus a few months ago.
But is anyone actually working with Big Data? At least in Boston, US, talking has begun to give way to doing.
Hack/Reduce, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based not-for-profit organization, officially opened the doors of its funky workspace last week with a big launch party, attended by technologists, investors, entrepreneurs and other hangers-on, including Deval Patrick, governor of the state.
In their own words:
"Hack/Reduce is Boston’s big data hacker space. A 501(c)(3) non-profit, hack/reduce provides the community of students, data scientists, industry professionals, and other enthusiasts the space and the resources – intense computer power, large data sets, and subject matter experts – that are critical for making new big data discoveries."
Governor Patrick is excited.
"The whole world is searching for wisdom to help transform society’s problems, like transportation and poverty.
"This place will help find ways to turn data into wisdom, and it’s a great opportunity for Boston to dominate the field of big data."
Hack/Reduce’s co-founder Chris Lynch is even more excited:
"Big data is a $100 billion market, with thousands of experts around the world. We’re taking advantage of the opportunity by bringing together the government, academia and the technology industry.
"The future of big data is not in Bombay, Shanghai or San Francisco – it’s here in Cambridge.”
Fred Lalonde, CEO of travel startup Hopper, is the other co-founder of Hack/Reduce, and his hope is that the project will act as a catalyst for big data solutions in the travel industry.
"The Boston/Cambridge area is the travel technology capital of the world - Kayak, Google/ITA Software, TripAdvisor, Amadeus, Smarter Travel Media, all in one town
"And these companies are getting serious about the technology and commercial models needed to build, manage and work with big data. 2013 will be the year of big data in travel."
There’s apparently plenty of interest in the big data community to support Hack/Reduce.
It's more than 100 applications for their resident hacker program, and their sponsor list is long and impressive, including big technology vendors and large venture capitalists
They are also soliciting applications for contributors – individuals who can bring something to the table and want to be involved.
Lalonde thinks there’s nothing like hack/reduce out there.
"There are lots of other hacker spaces out there, but the only place like this is the Mt. View campus of Google, and that’s a closed environment."
But what Hack/Reduce really needs to succeed is a continual supply of data, and convincing the travel industry to let go of data may take some doing.
"Any company that owns a data set should consider anonymizing it, then donating it," says Lalonde. "Every data set has potential value."
There’s been a lot of talk about gatekeepers of data in the travel industry, but what Lalonde is talking about is access to data that is not consumer-specific and without much intrinsic value.
Historical information, like flight schedules, or future information, like regional hotel development funnels, could be excellent fodder for innovation.
Perhaps the sniping about the control of data could give way to the realization there are many sets of travel data out there that don’t need to be so fiercely protected, and that could become part of the public data domain.
The technology is cheap enough, and the interest is great enough, that the ability of intersecting seemingly unrelated sets of data – travel data over travel data, or, probably more interesting, travel data over non-travel data, to see what happens could lead to great innovation.
Or not. But that’s the risk Hack/Reduce is willing to take. And it’s about time.
NB: Server image via Shuttersock.
NB2: Disclosure - Lalonde is also a co-founder and chairman of Tnooz