SXSW is filled with sessions. The Interactive part of SXSW boasts more than 800 total sessions across Austin during the event. This isn't counting speakers, exhibits, networking events and the countless other activities, panels and discussions occurring during SXSW Interactive.
And even though sessions I attended didn't have "Big Data" in the title, it became the focus very clearly in discussions.
Innovation Healthcare Beyond Medical Devices - SXSW Session
This was the first session I attended, and it was a great topic of conversation, which quickly turned to big data.
The panel, after introducing themselves and their expertise, discussed wearables and the data gathered from them.
From remote diagnosis to the latency of data processing, the panel ran the gamut of issues and concerns with big data in the healthcare field.
Yet, the most interesting part of the conversation came when someone asked about who owns your health data?
Not a simple answer. In the U.S. you are the owner of your health data. It is yours to share, read and interpret how you see fit. However, if you have ever attempted to get your health data form your doctor, it isn't the easiest endeavor to accomplish.
In Japan, the doctor owns the data. Which means doctors have the ability to distribute your health data to brands or other outlets as they would see fit.
However, in the world of healthcare and specifically with innovative medical devices, curating data into relevant data is difficult to process within this community. The legal ramifications and difficulties within every country is something that will take time to alleviate.
Big Data And AI Need Each Other and You Need Both - SXSW Session
Probably my favorite SXSW session I attended. This brought together Amir Husain, President and CEO of Sparkcognition Inc., Manoj Saxena, Managing Direction of the Entrepreneur's Fund, and Maher Masri, Partner at McKinsey & Company.
According to the panel, artificial intelligence currently is and will be the most disruptive technology mankind will ever make.
No industry exists in which AI cannot be an influencer of change.
However, we are nowhere near the world of intelligent AI.
For instance, you can set up "AI" to notify you when you have yet to achieve your 10,000 steps in a single day. Yet, you cold break your foot and the notifications will still appear until you tell the device to stop.
AI is not just software, and as Manoj Stewart said, "I'm not interested in big data but big outcomes. Make data richer not just smarter."
The panel continued to give example after example of what access to a marriage of big data and AI could look like.
One specific example was a farmer outside of Egypt could take a single picture of his son's like with a bite wound on it.
Not an app that is running, just a single picture taken. It notifies the father what type of bite it is, where the nearest hospital is and triage techniques to assist his son.
Another great example would be an AI operating throughout an entire oil refinery. Data and algorithms continue to run but the AI would be able to recognize system failures and notify users about imminent or manageable failures across the entire system.
The entire panel agreed that processing big data in a contextual way is something humans do far better than any algorithm can currently accomplish.
Yet, when we are able to have man and machine work together and shorten the "intelligence gap" between processing and gather data is when we can achieve things we never thought possible.
F1 Data Analysis Shifts Gears to Healthcare - SXSW Session
McLaren is known for winning Formula 1 races. But what about their involvement in the healthcare world?
Geoff McGrath, Vice President of McLaren's Applied Technologies, spoke about how this division took its Formula 1 strategies and techniques to team up with Julian Jenkins, Vice President of Research and Development at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
Geoff started off the conversation by talking about how McLaren didn't just look at the data output of a car, a bike or even a skeleton sled. McLaren took data from the person, their vehicle of choice and the environment to create winning teams.
Now, put this together with how healthcare is traditionally done and marrying all three (person, application and environment), created custom treatments for patients.
Likewise, GSK saw an increase in efficiency of delivery and execution of their R&D department, leading to quicker delivery of pharmaceuticals to the public.
Conclusion
Even though most of the sessions I attended discussed big data, these three really went into detail on what big data can look like when acted upon correctly.
Yet, the biggest narrative throughout all of these panels is big data has no narrative. And it is an ok thing.
Organizations and companies continue to look for a silver bullet labeled "big data" that will solve all of their problems.
That doesn't exist yet, regardless of the industry or business model. It may eventually, but until then we need people.
And no group of people is more important than your audience. Confirming your big data has a positive impact on your audiences' lives is the first, correct step to ensuring your organization utilizes big data properly.