Welcome to Data Is The New Oil by me, Olivier Lejeune. I am a data analyst and journalist based in Paris, France. I am curious about the role data can play in solving climate change and other global challenges.
By now, more than 10 years into the second tech boom, data is everywhere. Thanks to smartphones and other connected devices, there is an estimated 60 trillion gigabytes of data in circulation, 30 times more than in 2010. In other words, data has become as ubiquitous as the use of oil in the modern transport sector.
But, are we making full use of it? I would argue that we’re not. Many businesses and public institutions still lack the infrastructure to discover, treat and exploit datasets. And there is so much new data published in online repositories every day, that it is sometimes hard to find. I know it as an analyst working at the International Energy Agency, where I spend most of my time looking for new datasets.
This blog seeks to expose the gems within the sea of information published every week and to present it to you, my readers, in a digestible format. I am mainly interested in new datasets in the energy, climate and business spaces, but may sometimes veer away from those fields depending on personal interests.
It may seem preposterous to ask whether data can help solve the climate crisis. It certainly can’t on its own, but can make a meaningful impact in many areas, as the recent improvements in machine learning suggest.
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