Future Unplugged | Big Data Analytics

On one Friday every month, Excubator brings together a dozen leaders from large, global organizations and three start-up founders to brainstorm around challenges in a specific technology. Past sessions have seen participation from VMWare, Ericsson, Schneider Electric, Target, Boeing, Applied Materials etc.

Thus, in February 2018, Excubator's Future Unplugged | Internet of Things focussed on the key challenges in IoT implementations (Security, Connectivity and Data Intelligence) - and how three startups were solving these. And previously in January, we turned our lens on how AI/ML technologies are being used by three other startups to solve critical business issues by predicting and reducing customer churn, predicting job "fit" from a resume, and even creating disruptive cancer diagnosis algorithms.

On Friday 27th of April, we will look at Big Data, its challenges, and what a few startups are doing in these areas.

Data is the new oil .. but only if you know how to extract it. And use it.

The problem with Big Data is that it can easily swamp you with three "V"s .. Volume, Velocity and Variety. Never have large enterprises faced such challenges.

To put the volume of data into perspective, CISCO estimates that in 2018, IoT devices alone will generate and send 400 Zettabytes (or 400,000 billion, billion bytes) of data through the 'net. Just five years ago, in 2013, the total volume of data transferred on the internet was estimated to be 2 Zettabytes. Two.

Couple this with the velocity and the variety of data that large enterprises generate (through sensors, mobility, social media, video and images, email and text), and we see that we are rapidly accelerating the amount of data that we spawn.

To complicate this, much of this data is unstructured. IDG estimates that in a single year, unstructured data grew by almost 50% – rising from 31 percent in 2015 to 45 percent in 2016.

"Without big data analytics, companies are blind and deaf, wandering out onto the web like deer on a freeway." (Geoffrey Moore | Author | Crossing the Chasm, The Gorilla Game, Escape Velocity, Dealing with Darwin)

Data Explosion. Integrating disparate sources. Generating insights. Validating. And keeping all this secure.

Dealing with all these, and at the same time, dealing with organizational resistance can be sapping. A recent PwC report estimated that less than 37% of organizations were somewhat successful at harnessing big data.

"To get successful with big data", these organizations said, "we need to align everyone to the benefits of unifying, understanding and creating a learning organization".

But are there ways to unify all data, and draw faster insights from these? How can one deal with a data velocity of millions of events per second? Is it possible to create an organizational culture where people in different roles can understand the complexity of working with disparate data types, and draw actionable insights from these?

On the 27th of April 2018, Excubator will present three startups that can assist large enterprises understand and deal with these challenges, and put processes and products into practice. We hope to see you here. If you would like an invitation, please email [email protected] (limited seats available, please).

About Excubator: Excubator is a start-up incubator and a corporate venturing advisory that works with global enterprises and Governments (India, Switzerland, Netherlands etc) to help them leverage start-up innovation. Our Excube360 environment scan engine analyzes and spots technologies that promise faster and leaner innovation cycles for industry, as well as exponential returns on investments. 

Excubator also tracks and maintains relations with thousands of startups globally. Since 2013, we have guided hundreds of startups on building products and viable business models, scale, and get discovered by large global enterprises and investors through a steady and high quality deal flow.