Unequal access to data is driving a wedge between the data haves and the data have-nots.
If that statement sounds overblown or alarmist, it isn't. Data is the lifeblood of organizations from big business to government to healthcare and more. The advances in data storage and processing allowed by machine learning are astonishing. Once there is enough data and enough processing power, those who control it will be able to predict nearly anything you can imagine to a level only previously seen in science fiction.
The Digital Divide is a concept coined in the 1990s that refers to the gap between those who have access to the internet, computers, skills and services in the digital age and those who do not. The Data Divide is a related effect, describing the disparity between the expanding use of data to create commercial value and the comparatively weak use of data to solve social and environmental challenges.
We've made progress, but at the same time the disparity has increased. The world has witnessed a ten-fold growth in the total amount of data since 2013, and it's set to double by 2025. We throw these terms around so often that they've become all but meaningless. A zettabyte of data is beyond the capacity of most people to imagine.
So what are you, as a leader, expected to do about it, and frankly, why should you care? So much of the literature about data that comes from tech vendors (including Splunk) talks about taking control of your data as a competitive advantage. But it's time to start thinking more broadly — and more altruistically.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative at the University of California San Francisco built a lab for COVID-19 testing in eight days that was able to produce test results in 24 hours. They offered their services free to county public health offices across California, but those public health offices had no way to receive the test results except by fax. If there has ever been a more poignant example of a technological bottleneck crushing innovation — and endangering lives — we’re at a loss to think of it.
The pandemic taught us that no matter how quickly the top organizations in business, medicine and academia advance their ability to produce valuable, practical, sometimes life-saving information, we don't have the infrastructure to get it quickly and efficiently to the people who need it most.
It’s not hard to identify the issues making the Data Divide harder to cross.
It’s become a matter of dogma in tech that data is an organization's most valuable asset, and that remains true. But almost every time anyone says it, they’re talking in terms of efficiency, profitability, customer satisfaction and shareholder value.
