Its 10.30 AM, and the office has just started. Everyone is getting into their normal office routine when suddenly an alarm on the wall goes off. After a moment of silence among employees, there is sense of urgency. Everyone started switching off their system and leaving office. In half an hour the entire building was evacuated. At 11.37, a massive Earthquake strikes the city but not a single casualty. Thanks to a Catastrophe Alert System, not a single life was lost.
The above incident could be a distant future dream, but with the help of Analytics it’s not impossible to achieve. With the help of Seismological and historical data, Scientists are able to predict an Earthquake location and its measure on the Richter scale. But the data which is missing from such prediction is Date & Time.
To give you a perspective, the academic from US-Santa Cruz, Georgia Tech, The Costa Rica Volcanological and Seismological Observatory (OVSICORI), and the University of South Florida did an amazing prediction on Earthquakes. They figured it would be of 7.6 on Richter scale in Nicoya, Costa Rica, it turned out to be 7.8 on Richter scale. The only issue here was that they gave a window of 20 years for Earthquake to strike.
So it is just matter of time when we will start giving such predictions with lot of accuracy on Location, Date and Time. One can imagine kind of lives we can save with this information.
Now the question is how does Analytics help us in creating a better life? The answer is, in so many ways. Some of the analytics based solution I have listed down:
Crime Prediction
What if we could predict crime before it occurs. I am not talking about a Sci-Fi fiction movie Minority Report, but a reality which is taking place across the globe.
PredPol, a company in crime prediction, has implemented a statistical model which helps in identifying crime prone areas on a given day. The model creates hotspot on daily basis for those areas where a crime can take place. Once the model is implemented in Santa Cruz, California the crime rate for burglary has gone down by 27%. After the proven result, the model is getting implemented in Los Angeles. The algorithm triggers alert for a criminal activity which may happen in a particular area.
The predictions not only it helps in curbing such crimes but it also helps in deploying the policemen effectively.
Natural Disasters
World-earthquakes.com publishes next-48-hours-predictions on earthquake on its website. Although, it’s just a statistical estimation but it gives alert for an earthquake prone areas. Risk Management Solutions, RMS, a privately held company is building catastrophe risk models since 1994. They give valuable predictions on natural calamities like Cyclones, Storms, Flood, and Pandemic.
Such predictions help in taking evasive actions before a calamity strikes.
City Traffic Management
A traffic analytics can help in traffic incident detections, real time traffic flow management and traffic violation image information storage system. It also helps in improved traffic police supervision.
The algorithm can devise sub route options based on overall traffic on the road hence helps in avoiding road blockage and bottleneck situation due to heavy traffic. And if we combine this data with weather prediction then a Traffic Analytics can do wonders for us.
Healthcare Predictions
Care Analytics helps organizers to assimilate patient information gathered at various levels of patient interactions and to mine the structure and unstructured data coming from Doctor’s notes, lab reports and patient historical health record. Organizers quickly analyze the data and indentify trends and patterns to come up with better health solution.
It helps in understanding a patient at individual level which allows providers to come up with customized medical solution which will give a quick recovery. With insights derived from the data, hospitals can proactively work on post operative infections, prevent a disease or stop it at a very early stage.
Fraud Detection
With this quickly changing technological environment, the risk of frauds and identity theft is also increasing with a rapid pace. Imagine if somebody gets your credit card details and uses it for an online transaction, how does it feel?
To overcome this type of frauds and thefts, Banks are relying heavily on algorithm based alert system. Based on your historical transaction pattern, system generates alert every time it finds an unusual transaction. Most of the times, the credit card information is skimmed by cyber criminals and they use small transactions to verify if it’s working. The algorithm keeps the record of your transactions and if any suspicious settlement happens it triggers an alert.
This is one example which talks about credit cards. The same concept can be implemented in case of loan default or tax thefts or scam detection.
These are the some benefits which can be derived from data driven strategies. Analytics is playing a prominent role in other domains of life such as precision agriculture, weather forecasting, city planning and many more. The list is endless; let’s hope that human intelligence coupled with technology makes this world a better place to live.
