Mention ‘Big Data’ and no one bats an eyelid nowadays especially for those in the industry, but 4 years back this term was alien to most of us. MDEC has been pushing the big data initiative since the new CEO Dato Yasmin Mahmood took over the government agency and has been instrumental in driving initiatives for corporations, government bodies and even small organisation to be cognisant of big data. An example is how the positive awareness the agency had driven is how they had to revise the targeted data scientists from 1500 to 2000 by 2020 and 16,000 data professionals.
Among the initiatives that has given growth this, is the recently concluded Big Data Week Asia in its fourth installment. The event was held at KLCC Convention Centre that saw over 3,500 participants from across the region, 84 world-class speakers, 38 leading exhibitors, 41 sponsors and 17 satellite events focused on building a data driven ASEAN. Incidentally, Kuala Lumpur is the 2016 city partner of Global Big Data Week and the congregation has been officially recognised as the biggest in Asia this year.
BIGIT Technology Malaysia, the anchor event for Big Data Week Asia, was held on 19th and 20th September apart from speakers the event featured Pepper, the world’s first robot that’s capable of reading emotions and feelings. The two-day event featured thought leaders such as Professor Karim R. Lakhani from Harvard Business School, Daniel Castro Director of Centre for Data Innovation, US, Amr Awadallah Co-founder and CTO of Cloudera and Lutz Finger Data Scientist, Cornell University along with a host of regional and local speakers.
“We are thrilled to see such a great response from speakers and participants of Big Data Week Asia 2016. This is just remarkable,” said Yasmin who officiated Big Data Week 2016.“
During the event MDEC also launched the ASEAN Data Analytics Exchange which according to Dr Karl Ng Director of Innovation at MDEC, will redefine the approach to Big Data by bringing together the community, enterprises, startups, academia and working professionals at a single venue.
