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By Karen Delprete, EMC As I publish yet another blog post, I realize that I am contributing to the digital data explosion. What digital data explosion you ask? The digital data explosion is not just the mountain of information that exists online – it’s the millions of Internet-connected smart devices that are constantly collecting and sharing content. Today’s sensors are on everything from cars to refrigerators to traffic lights, creating waves of data that simply didn’t exist a few years ago. In fact, according to the most recent Digital Universe Study released by EMC and IDC, our digital universe is doubling in size every two years. By 2020, the data we create and copy annually will equal 44 zettabytes. To put this into perspective, one zettabyte could fill 250 billion DVDs! That’s a lot of Breaking Bad episodes. So what does this mean for government? Well, a lot actually. This sensor explosion, commonly known as the “Internet of Things,” can help agencies of all sizes to become more efficient, reduce costs, and improve citizen engagement. Take a city’s electricity bills, for example. Modern streetlight sensors can determine when a car or pedestrian is present, brightening only when necessary and saving the city 50-60% in energy usage! This data tsunami represents an incredible opportunity for federal agencies as well. The Department of Defense (DoD) has committed $60 million annually to new projects that will use data to develop autonomous systems, and National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are investing in research to manage, analyze, and visualize enormous data sets to improve public health. The administration’s Digital Strategy is also strategically aligned with this new reality, focused on helping agencies leverage emerging online channels to deliver critical information more efficiently to citizens. As you can see, contributing to this data explosion is not a bad thing, because more data means more opportunity for insight, but it’s a fact that cloud, mobile, and social technologies are producing more data than our global society knows what to do with. The possibilities are endless. Data can help governments crowdsource citizen feedback, improve decision-making, and radically reduce costs. We’re living in a data-driven society, and government has a huge role to play in this new reality. For more information on the current state of our expanding digital universe, check out the full interactive report here, and please read the fantastic blog post by EMC Chief Marketing Officer Jonathan Martin, which provides additional context around this important trend. Author information |
