Big data becomes tool in Ebola battle

WASHINGTON – Nine days before Ebola was declared an epidemic, a group of researchers and computer scientists in Boston spotted the hemorrhagic fever beginning to spread in Guinea.

By scouring the Internet for clues from social media, local news reports and other available online data, the algorithm developed by HealthMap had an early picture of the deadly disease moving across West Africa.

“Official agencies tend to be more cautious about these announcements, so public communication tends to lag,” said Clark Freifeld, who co-founded HealthMap in 2006 at Boston Children’s Hospital.

“We see this as our role to get that information out there quickly even though it may not be validated at the same level as official announcements.”

It is impossible to know whether earlier detection may have helped contain the spread of Ebola, but many scientists say this type of “big data” approach can be useful in curbing epidemics.

Tracking, predicting epidemics

So far, this approach has been used mainly for detection; but some experts say the technology sector’s predictive analytics could be even more useful.

If that is the case, the same kind of technology that helps marketers deliver targeted ads and suggest music or films could be useful in the fight against communicable diseases like Ebola.

“I think big data has a huge potential to help fight not only Ebola, but other disease outbreaks,” said Marisa Eisenberg, a mathematical epidemiologist at the University of Michigan who has used data models to study other outbreaks, like the cholera epidemic in Haiti.

Eisenberg said it is possible to get better information by analyzing Twitter messages, airline data, emergency calls and other available health data.

“We need to find a way to do these things on a large scale, using real-time data because time is of the essence,” she told AFP.

Getting data quickly could enable health officials to get resources and treatment where it is needed to contain disease outbreaks.

In the tech community, Microsoft announced that it would make its cloud computing platform Azure available to researchers battling Ebola.

And multimillion-dollar donations to the effort have come from Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Paul Allen, a Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist, has pledged $100 million.

The efforts come as the number of Ebola infections surpassed 10,000 and the death toll neared 5,000 worldwide, mainly in three West African nations.

Silicon Valley ingenuity?

But Silicon Valley needs to do more to keep Ebola from spiraling out of control, said Vivek Wadhwa, a Stanford University research fellow and faculty member at California’s Singularity University, which promotes innovative technologies.

“The tech industry does amazing things, because they take a big problem and attack it from all sides,” Wadhwa told AFP.

But he said entrepreneurs involved in health technology “are frustrated because no one is listening to them.”

There are already some technological tools that could be deployed in the Ebola fight, in areas such as software diagnostics and vaccine delivery as well as cloud-based data analysis.

“Just as airlines mine travel data to predict which flights are going to be full and to set airfares, data scientists can mine travel, epidemic and passenger-load data to determine the probability of a passenger’s being a disease carrier,” Wadhwa said in a blog post.

This effort has the potential to succeed in part due to the ubiquity of mobile phones around the world, and growing participation in networks like Twitter and Facebook, where posts can be analyzed for clues about disease.

HealthMap collects and interprets data in 15 languages, and uses both software and human experts for more detailed analysis. It has previously tracked the H1N1 virus and can monitor the movement of other diseases.

“One of the challenges is that when a signal first emerges you don’t know if it’s going to turn into an international situation,” Freifeld said.

“There are small outbreaks all the time; the question is when it becomes more serious.”

Yet some relatively simple efforts using technology have apparently been used successfully.

Nigerian Minister of Communication Technology Omobola Johnson told a conference that technology and social media were key to her country being declared Ebola-free.

“A combination of the use of an Android app, Facebook and Twitter were instrumental in Nigeria’s fight to contain the Ebola virus,” Johnson said.

“With Ebola, time is very important. The phone app helped in reducing reporting times of infections by 75 percent. Test results were scanned to tablets and uploaded to emergency databases and field teams got text message alerts on their phones informing them of the results.”

source: technology.inquirer.net

Demand for Cloud IT careers on the rise, says expert

MANILA, Philippines – Cloud computing technology is poised to revolutionize not just how businesses and the government use information technology (IT), but will also potentially shape the country’s workplace landscape.

Cyril Rocke, President and CEO of DataOne Asia, an independent provider of IT services in the Philippines, reveals that cloud computing is holding much promise for any industry and is encouraging a new breed of university or college IT graduates to handle the expected shift towards cloud computing.

“Since 2011, we have seen that the number of companies who have migrated to the Cloud has more than doubled, and this highlights the great potential of the Philippines to become a platform for cloud-based services. In effect, the demand for hires who are knowledgeable about Cloud and virtualization technologies will become even higher.”

Since cloud computing has minimized the need for businesses to acquire in-house IT infrastructure and has urged companies to rely on Cloud service providers, Rocke believes that even IT professionals will need to evolve to enable steady function of Cloud services directed at multiple users.

“Because of the Cloud, IT professionals will no longer be much involved in hardware repairs or troubleshooting of servers as in the past. They will become service-oriented, and less hardware-oriented,” Rocke said.

Rocke notes that since many employers have already learned their lessons in building their IT infrastructure, they expect IT recruits to possess three main technical qualities that will ensure sustainable operations. First, he believes that graduates should be familiar with applications and infrastructure.

“A company’s chief information officer (CIO) would expect his IT staff to know how to roll out applications and infrastructure in the most effective manner. This means that the recruits should know how to procure virtual machine providers from Cloud providers such as DataOne, instead of expecting their company to acquire more hardware.”

He adds that IT recruits should be aware of the benefits of cloud computing, especially when it comes to software deployment and management.

“IT hires should be aware of how cloud computing has made software applications readily available. The IT hire should also be aware of the wide range of software that are available on the Cloud, such as email, payroll, sales force automation, and enterprise resource planning,” Rocke says.

He also emphasizes on the need for IT graduates to be knowledgeable about security issues and the process of encryption, especially with the growing cyber-warfare and cyber-espionage directed at critical industries.

“IT hires also need to be concerned about security. As such, they are expected to devise policies to ensure that corporate data does not ever leak to the wrong parties,” Rock says.

DataOne’s Data Center and Network Operations Senior Manager Aileen Martinez added that, aside from knowledge and other technical skills, an aspiring IT staff must possess the right attitude, which should help them manage their time and work programs.

“Cloud services are very in-demand today because they are easy to deploy and to sync in a company’s processes and existing IT systems. Some of these companies have very challenging lead times to implement their Cloud projects.  This is why the IT personnel should be able to work well under extreme pressure,” she says.

Aside from the ability to handle pressure, Martinez adds that IT recruits should also have good social skills which will allow them to communicate with their co-workers as well as the clients. Having a good team of IT professionals would ensure smooth processes in delivering IT services.

“People skills remain an important attribute because these recruits will most likely work in a team of more experienced engineers. It is important for the recruit to make himself valuable to the team and avoid making any conflict,” Martinez says.

“The IT recruits will also have to talk to the end customers via phone, email, or even face-to-face meetings. They should be able to communicate in a professional manner.”

Lastly, Martinez says that employers value recruits who strive to excel in their profession. Having aspirations will also encourage an IT professional to find ways to improve themselves through the work they do.

“We at DataOne strive for excellence, that’s why we deliver 99.99% service levels. Our IT recruits should also have that attitude, the drive to excel at all costs. The same goes for other IT companies,” she says.

Rocke emphasizes that the growing use of cloud computing among all industries offers an exciting work opportunity for this school year’s batch of IT graduates.

“Cloud computing has further changed the IT landscape, and, now, it is exciting, fast-paced and ever-evolving more than ever. It opens a lot of new job opportunities for our fresh IT graduates,” he says.
Rocke is also optimistic due to a recent report from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), which states that 2 out of the 10 top paying jobs in the country belong in the IT sector. Because of this, he urges aspiring IT professionals to take advantage of this opportunity.

“There are short-term employment bridging courses or skills training, some of them offered either by the government or private institutions, that will give them the necessary knowledge and experience they need before they join the IT the workforce.”

Rocke also mentioned that the recruit’s choice of school does not matter when it comes to following the IT career path. Rather, there are other formal and non-formal options for graduates and working professionals to add to their skills. In fact, the Internet is one source of non-formal learning.

“The choice of school does not ensure anything. I encourage these recruits to take free online courses and even college offerings on IT so they could educate themselves,” he says.

On a final note, Rocke gave the aspiring IT professionals some tips on how they could land “cloud jobs”.

“Keep on learning — always keep yourself updated on new technologies on cloud computing because that’s where technology is heading, and there is no way to stop it.”

source: technology.inquirer.net