BIC, Al Sakhir: Over 55 billion pictures, 40 million tweets and one billion documents are exchanged globally every day is seen as just a tip of iceberg of dynamism of big data.
The experts, who have been conducting workshops and sharing experience over past three days on the sidelines of the Bahrain International eGovernment Forum 2015 which concludes on Thursday, believe if you were to count every Facebook user, they would represent the largest nation in the world.
Thursday is the final day of the Bahrain International eGovernment Forum 2015 with its eight specialized workshops and IT Expo comes to close. The event was held under the patronage of His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Mubarak Al Khalifa Deputy Prime Minister, Chairman of the Supreme Committee for Information and Communication Technology. Both the forum and expo were held from 15th to 19th March at the Isa Cultural Centre and Bahrain International Circuit respectively.
The ‘Social Media – Business Innovation’ workshop uncovered that women are by far the most dominant users of social media, mobile-use of social media is becoming more apparent, the number of social media continues to grow and rise as well as play a major part of building and thriving businesses. “If you were to count every Facebook user, they would represent the largest nation in the world,” declared workshop speaker Stephen Jio.
‘Secrets of Business Innovation and Innovative Entrepreneurship’ workshop enlightened participants of how to create a market as it covered various frameworks. The workshop also revealed how to become an innovator leader, build culture innovation and organization in public and private sector. Participants also learnt six methods for innovation and creativity in products and services as well as how to implement such methods in Bahrain.
Participants at the ‘Big Data – Future and Challenges’ workshop learnt that 55 billion picture images, 40 million tweets and 1 billion documents are globally exchanged per day – amounting to 2.5 quintillion bites daily. ‘Holistic Business Process Management’ workshop indicated to participants that some organizations need to make small incremental improvements more effectively; demonstrated how to understand customers, how to ease their lives, what they should gain, and what would benefit them.
The ‘Building Defensible Critical Information Infrastructure’ workshop revealed that in five years from today, 50 billion digital devices will be connected to the internet – which will allow a large number of devices to talk and instruct each other, such as fridges, washing machines only to name the least.
Participants of ‘eGovernment Success Stories’ workshop had received abundant information on the concepts of smart residence engagement in smart cities as well as the smart services that cope with the rapid changing trends.
The speakers on Wednesday sessions pointed out the importance of eHealth services in hospitals, clinics and medical centers, which largely contribute in reducing the operational cost of service delivery. They further added that the youth segment represent the biggest block of population no matter how small the country is – such as Bahrain or Japan; or big as Canada. In Japan, 40% of the population is below 30 of age and 3% are between 30 & 35 years-of-age, this creates major challenges to government. In Jordan for example, 40% of the population die from heart and sugar diseases – a situation that is similar in many countries of the region, a fact which requires investment in resources and establishment of advanced systems to improve health care services, control of diagnosis and follow-up to minimize medical malpractice.
The workshop – centered on smart city concept – clarified that smart city is not only about technology but is also about the data supported by knowledge.
The ‘PMI – Agile Certified Practitioner’ workshop, participants learnt the techniques for realistic planning in designing any project; along with the tools for proper monitoring and estimation. Over 82% of worldwide projects are moving towards interactive delivery – allowing projects to be executed in one to four weeks. The ‘System Design and User-Experience’ workshops gave its participants the opportunity to work in eyes-breaking exercises to open their minds on practical innovative design ideas. A number of creative concepts were brought up; such as glasses that scan and translate foreign languages into a selected language, along with jackets that turn warm in cold weathers and cold in hot weather.