The School of Lifelogging

Could lifelogging address the educational "achievement gap" while preparing children from all backgrounds to work with data? Securing personal data from unwelcome eyes will likely remain a challenge. Lifelogging is not just about quantitative analysis. Highly engaging, qualitative storytelling can also emerge from data gathered by learners. Stories of self-determination would involve the learner's own understanding of personal ambitions and dreams.

Lifelogging is part of a growing movement known as "the quantified self". Wearable sensors and cameras capture data about an individual's everyday experience to improve self-understanding. Ordinarily focused on health and wellbeing, lifelogging could disrupt education as we know it. Smartphones were only the beginning. Performance data from wearable devices could personalise learning in ever more intimate ways.

Maslow's Market Intelligence

We share an idea for how charities might become smarter in a networked world by using business intelligence concepts and a transparency index based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

There is no shortage of challenges facing charities. As humanity grapples with complex issues, it is through the power of networks that the not-for-profit sector can best address human needs. To make a greater impact, donors and charities should take a closer look at their organisation as one option in a marketplace of alternatives.

Entrenched poverty, food security and failing education systems are large-scale challenges that also present massive opportunities. Through open data, these opportunities can become more apparent as a form of market intelligence. In this blog post we hone in on how open data may be structured for the benefit of all.

Buy locally, my dear Watson

Investigating the potential of an artificial intelligence that could assist midsized organisations in making smarter purchases locally.

In the pursuit to save money, some of those responsible for procurement and purchasing have hopped on the bandwagon of offshoring and taken advantage of the globalisation of suppliers, neglecting their local economies. Consumers have been making similar choices, turning away from local purchasing toward buying online. What some may deem progress, others experience as draining the life out of their local High Street.

To achieve a mix of local and global, a clearer understanding of product/service's supply chain must be available, both for consumers, and those involved in business. Imagine the day when Watson, the cognitive computer that defeated humans at the quiz show 'Jeopardy' in 2011, develops a heart. Who knows, with IBM's recently announced business unit, The Watson Group, along with its $1 billion initial investment, anything may be possible in the years ahead.