The Best TED Talks on Big Data Analytics

What is TED talk?

The growth of Big Data has been highly inspiring. Over the years, data analytics, extraction, and data visualization have revolutionized numerous sectors across the globe. Irrespective of their nature, operations, and size, business organizations are embracing and leveraging data like never before!

Such increasing popularity of big data and data analytics creates unique opportunities for further research and development. The tech world thought leaders, aspiring entrepreneurs, data analysts, thinkers, and data scientists had come together to unlock new avenues for big data, especially in TED Talks.

These TED talks on Big Data are comprehensive accounts of their thoughts and present a clear picture of what the world’s thinking about the data revolution. The acronym ‘TED’ stands for ‘Technology, Entertainment, and Design.’ TED aims at promoting innovative ideas and discussing path-breaking issues within 18 minutes.

TED wants to reach out to countless people across the globe. Through their official website, TED.com and a highly popular YouTube channel, Technology, Entertainment, and Design let you know all that’s happening around you!

Their official website is flooded with a whopping 556 talks and discussions on data analytics. What’s more interesting is that readers can also add their feedback and suggestions.

Let’s take a look at the top ten TED Talks on data analytics.

1. The Birth of a Word, by Deb Roy

As the CEO and co-founder of Bluefin Labs, Deb Roy researches the underlying theories of human cognition and machine learning. He also directs technical projects at ‘Cognitive Machines Group’ and is currently engaged in learning how kids acquire language and design communicative machines.

Deb has gone a long way in finding the origin of a ‘word,’ the first utterances of a newborn. By transforming his house into a potential linguistic lab, Roy came up with key findings of a newborn’s behaviour. He closely monitored his newborn’s actions and speech, thus finding out how a simple sound like ‘gala’ turns into a well-formed word such as ‘water.’ The use of data-driven techniques and methods in his research promote data analytics to a great extent!

2. The Beauty of Data Visualization, by David Mccandles

He is one of the most popular data journalists who love to infer visually appealing conclusions from complicated data sets. David believes in attractive designs and their power to reduce information silos.

In the latest TED Talk, he talks about the way complex data sets can be turned into beautiful patterns and diagrams. Data from popular sources such as Facebook, media, and news can be extracted in the best way. Quite naturally, data navigation becomes easier than ever.

3. What we Learned from 5 Million Books, by Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel

As the Founding Director and one of the significant members of ‘Harvard Cultural Observatory,’ Jean-Baptiste along with his friend and colleague Erez Lieberman Aiden studies human history, culture, and language. He carries out this research with the help of quantitative methods thus unlocking new opportunities for data analytics.

In the TED Talk, Jean-Baptiste talks about the importance of data analytics and how it can be leveraged to develop better ideas of the world and its surroundings. He happens to be the creator of an online tool, which helps you find and comprehend diverse cultural trends.

4. Big Data, Better Data, by Kenneth Cukier

Kenneth Cukier works as the Data Editor for ‘The Economist,’ and he has also co-authored the book ‘Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think.’ This man is no less than an encyclopedia when it comes to discussing big data, human cognition, and machine learning.

In this discussion, Kenneth tried to foresee the future of data analytics and machine learning. What’s next for technology, design, and data analytics? Perhaps, this is the question Kenneth tries to answer.

5. What to do with Big Data, by Susan Etlinger

Susan works with the Altimeter Group, and her job role is an industry analyst. With a keen focus on data analytics, she tries to find out current market trends and new opportunities. As the author of ‘A Framework for Social Analytics’ and ‘’The Social Media ROI Cookbook”, Susan can offer readers crucial insights into the significance and use of data.

As a smart and ingenious data analyst, Susan shared some crucial facts about data. She emphasizes the importance of critical thinking and urges people to think out of the box thus delving deep into the nuances of concepts.

6. How Data can Revolutionize the Business Arena, by Philip Evans

Apart from co-authoring ‘Blown to Bits,’ Philip Evans happens to be the managing director and senior partner at the ‘Boston Consulting Group.’ Philip did a lot of research on the role of data scraping and analytics in the business world.

In this exciting and engaging discussion, Evans shared his ideas on some of the longstanding concepts and two of the most popular notions. Firstly, he gave crucial insights into the concept of the value chain popularized by Michael Porter. Secondly, he shared his thoughts on ‘increasing returns to scale.’ The prime emphasis of his discussion was about big data and how it will affect the business world.

7. Smart Statistics Help you Fight Crime, by Anne Milgram

As a seasoned criminal prosecutor in the US, Anne Milgram shared her thoughts on the role played by data analytics in criminal prosecution. While serving as the Attorney General of New Jersey, Anne came across some of the most crucial insights. She realized that the entire prosecution process relied on individual insights and instinct, which often leads to wrong perceptions.

While discussing these points, Anne came up with interesting revelations about the judiciary and criminal justice. She promotes the use of data-driven methodologies and techniques to solve criminal cases.

8. Storytelling and the Birth of Mean Data, by Ben Wellington

From an ace computer scientist to a phenomenal data analyst to a storyteller and blogger, Ben Wellington plays diverse roles. He leverages NYC’s open data thus weaving stories about numerous aspects of the place.

In his TED Talk, Ben shares his ideas on big data analytics and how it helps him create engaging stories about New York City.

9. Relationship Analytics & Business, by Zack Johnson

‘Syndio Social’ is the creative brainchild of Zack Johnson. His company helps business organizations across the world to embrace and adopt change. Zack took up social network analysis for his higher studies and worked on crucial projects for NASA, the US Army, MacArthur Foundation, and more.

While delivering his speech at the TEDx event, Zack talked about the significance of data analysis and its connections with organizations, human behavior, and employee relationships. His discussions sparked comments from various members of the TEDx event thus unlocking new opportunities and avenues for the business world.

10. Human-Computer Cooperation, by Shyam Sankar

Shyam Sankar is one of the most important personalities in this list. He’s the director of ‘Palantir Technologies’ – a data analysis firm. Sankar’s company helps business organizations and law enforcement units analyze crucial data thus helping them stay ahead of market competition.

Sankar establishes his thoughts and notions about human-computer interaction. According to him, the key to executing complex functions lies in the ability to understand computer languages. You don’t have to get hold of the perfect algorithm. Rather, it’s much more important to understand symbiotic relationships between human creativity and computational methods.

Leveraging the Power of Data

All said and done, data analytics has an important role to play in the present and future world. With tech innovations giving birth to revolutions, data analytics is turning into a necessity for businesses.

Parting Thoughts

These TED Talks aim at capturing this growth and development of data. Thought leaders come together to break down the key findings associated with big data analytics.

The world is a place where huge amounts of open data are waiting to be analyzed. With effective suggestions from TED analysts, business organizations, independent workers, and creative thinkers will have better opportunities to perform and excel.

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