Review of TED Talks Video on Bringing Public Data to the 21st Century

I came across TED Talks for the first time and thought I would write about a video I watched regarding big data.  Data scientist Ben Wellington presents on the ways that public data can be better utilized and how it can be used to help make our world a better place.

The overall message that Ben is trying to get across is that public data should be much more available than it is today.  We live in an ever-changing technological world, yet most public records are only available in formats such as PDF.  Data such as this can be very difficult to analyze, requiring either manual transfer or custom software to pull out the data sets.  It is also inconsistent, with data being stored differently between organizations.  Once the data is pulled out and sorted, however, it can be mined and analyzed.

 

The examples Ben uses all come from New York City, and he uses graphs, maps, and data plots to showcase the results.  For example, by plotting the locations of bicycle accidents it is possible to create a map showing the most dangerous intersections in New York City for cyclists.  He shares a similar map showing the locations of the dirtiest waterways around the city.  Perhaps the most interesting example is when he shows a map which portrays which fire hydrants generate the highest number of parking tickets.  The top two hydrants in the city combined generated over $58,000 per year!  It was discovered that the parking near these hydrants was very confusing to motorists, and once the issue was brought to the city, the problem was fixed shortly after.

Ben uses humor and great examples to clearly present his argument for better, more accessible public data.  By harnessing the power of crowd sourcing, we will be able to find answers to questions we didn’t even know existed.  I think he presents his argument very well and I agree with what he has to say.  Providing data only in printer-friendly formats is outdated.  The field of data science has exploded in recent years, and allowing the public to work with the data will raise questions that would never have been asked. 

By standardizing the way agencies and organizations store data and releasing data in its raw format along with PDFs, we can unlock the passion and abilities of citizens to harness open data and make our cities better.

Link to TED Talks video: How we found the worst place to park in New York City - using big data