Big Data is changing the world for us all

Big Data is coming soon to have an impact on your life.  In fact, the use of big data is already changing the way you shop and the way things are sold to you.  Every time you go to buy a book on Amazon it will make recommendations about other books you might like.  It achieves this by crunching untold numbers of tiny bits of information, not only about you but more importantly about all the other people around the world who read the books you like.  There is a lot of big data out there.  Google Chief Executive, Eric Schmidt, says five Exabytes of information were generated from the dawn of civilisation up until 2003.  That same amount of information is now created every two days.  If that weren’t enough, one Exabyte is one billion gigabytes or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 different pieces of information.

With that in mind, MK:Smart, the multi-agency project to analyse big data relating to transport, water and energy in Milton Keynes, is going to have to look at a lot of information.  We’re going to be ready to go in March, but we’re still working out which pieces of data are the right ones to use to provide answers to the questions at the heart of the project.  The clever bit is not just working out how to process it and relate different collections of data to each other but deciding what to keep and analyse and what to ignore.  Not that it’s that simple of course.  Data which is useful for improving traffic flow may be of no value to the study of water usage and vice versa.  Information can only be defined as junk in relation to a specific project and it might be absolutely pivotal to another.  Therefore, everything we collect we will need to store in such a way that it can be accessed when it does become relevant.

If this all sounds a bit esoteric it’s important to understand just how important big data can be.  The American McKinsey Global Institute produced a report about big data eighteen months ago.  It points to the experience of the German Federal Employment Agency.  In British terms this would be a combination of Job Centre Plus, the National Careers Service and a big chunk of the Department for Work and Pensions.  The Agency employs 120,000 people and it has embraced big data techniques to help it manage such a sprawling bureaucracy more efficiently.  The results have helped it save more than £8bn to date, a little less than the entire annual budget of the Home Office.  If MK:Smart can be anything like as successful the results for everyone who lives here will be transformational.

In such a new world there are opportunities and gaps to be filled.  From September 2014 UCMK plans to offer a new Bachelor of Science Honours Degree in Data Science.  The same McKinsey report I referred to earlier reckons on an immediate shortfall of up to 190,000 graduates in this field in the United States alone.  It’s an area where government, the corporate world and academia are going to be competing for the most talented people and there will be some very exciting and well-rewarded careers to be had.

Big Data will change the world, and it’s incredibly exciting and exhilarating to think that here at UCMK we’re going to be right at the heart of that change.

Inspiration to beat the January Blues

I’ve decided – this is an inspiring time of year.

It’s so easy to feel everything is a little bit bleak in the grey weeks of January, but I’m delighted to say the first days of 2014 have brought me nothing but inspiration.

I’ve just been to a really exciting conference all about Big Data.  You may already be aware that UCMK is at the heart of a ground-breaking project to crunch huge quantities of information relating to transport, water and energy in Milton Keynes called MK:Smart (to learn more, go to http://www.mksmart.org/ ).  It’s an area which is in its infancy but the importance of it is unmistakable.  We heard from big companies like Intel and Experian about their plans and it’s fair to say the future of big data will create lots of imaginative collaborations between business and academia.  We both need each other to make it work but the implications are massive for how the world is planned and run in the future.  People have always collected large amounts of data but the interconnectedness of everyone now means we can actually start using it in ways which will be both commercially profitable and socially beneficial.

I’ve been back to school; Shenley Brook End school to be precise.  The school hosted the Great Education Debate all about the future of teaching and learning and it was extremely thought-provoking.  Should we follow the example of countries like South Korea or Singapore in making everything about passing exams?  Is education about happiness and fulfilment, the joy of learning – and if so, how do we most effectively measure these things?  How do we make the teaching profession more desirable and less of a punch bag to encourage our best minds into it?  Are disciplines like Drama and Sociology undervalued and under threat?  Lots of food for thought.

A further source of inspiration for our future is the Entrepreneurialism Group of which I’m also a member.  It’s made up of people from business, academia and education who work with local children, some as young as ten or eleven, who show real signs of having a head for business, having powerful, potentially commercial ideas and who have the drive to possibly even build something which could make money.  It’s not just about saying, “Aren’t you great,” and then leaving them to their own devices.  The intention is to give them real structures and processes they can use to make their business dream reality.  Some of these children have really interesting ideas and if we as a group can help them develop, market and exploit them, the possibilities really are endless.  The project involves young people from Hazeley Academy and Two Mile Ash Primary School and has already produced a new, educational treasure hunting app for the Android platform.  Milton Keynes is bursting with small businesses run by one or two people, and it’s never too early to open children’s eyes to the possibility that they can be their own boss.

The city and the university are bursting with ideas.  Dismiss the winter blues and be inspired!

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Higher Education must make sure the (abolition of) the cap fits

The world of Higher Education is still digesting the news that the student cap will be lifted from 2015, with an initial first step of increasing student numbers in 2014 by thirty thousand people.  There is no doubt this is a great opportunity, not only for the institutions which want to expand their intake but for huge numbers of young people who might not otherwise have had the chance to take advantage of the excellent level of education on offer from British universities. 

Hiding among these opportunities are a number of challenges and some significant pitfalls, and the degree to which these are avoided in the years to come will be the benchmark by which the sector’s response will be judged.  Firstly, it is extremely important that institutions don’t recruit beyond their means and thereby diminish the value of students’ experiences at university.  They mustn’t be tempted to set up courses which go unfilled, or to overfill those existing ones which are popular and diminish their value in the process.  There must be fair competition between universities; Higher Education can’t be allowed to become like some academic gold rush for student numbers.

Questions about raising the cap were high on the agenda when Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire (our parent institution), Bill Rammell and I had the opportunity to meet the head teachers from the secondary schools in Milton Keynes.  It was really encouraging to discover that they are extremely supportive of us.  There’s no doubt that they want there to be a strong campus-based higher education presence in Milton Keynes and recognise that what UCMK offers is an important and meaningful step towards fulfilling that ambition.  What we did learn was that we have a lot of work to do in terms of raising awareness of our existence and of what we offer in terms of courses, facilities and expertise.  It’s also crucial to get the message across that we are in the city to be a part of it.  Half of our students come from the Milton Keynes area and much of what we do is centred on work which complements the needs of local business.  With that in mind I’m hoping to go to visit a number of the schools in the New Year and to meet some of their pupils who I very much hope will be our students of the future. 

One of the benefits of being so new to the sector is that we at UCMK already have a clearly defined plan for recruitment for the next five years.  Growth will be measured and sustainable.  We aren’t going to all of a sudden try to massively up our intake because of the inherent risks I’ve already outlined.  It is central to our philosophy that the experience students have here must be the focus of all that we do.  We have a very adaptable space of here in Saxon Court so we’re fortunate to have the room to grow.  Certainly, international recruitment can be a volatile market and the national policy change will enable us to consider increasing the proportion of students we take in from the UK but it is unlikely to have an impact on the headline numbers.

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of chatting to a gentleman who had trained as a Physical Geographer at what was a Technical School in Luton quite a few years ago.  He was looking round the Luton campus of the University of Bedfordshire where his school used to be and marvelling at the changes time had wrought.  It made me think that in ten, twenty or fifty years to come people may return here to UCMK and reminisce about the times they spent here saying, “Do you remember that first Christmas back in 2013?” and “Just look at it now.  Who’d have thought it?”

I wonder what they’ll see.

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Student seal of approval for UCMK

It seems an obvious thing to say but the students are the most important people at UCMK.  For the staff and university authorities it’s vital to know what they make of us and how pleased they are with the way things are going for them at their chosen place of study.  As I write this we’re preparing to welcome the University of Bedfordshire Students’ Union Conference which is being held at Milton Keynes for the very first time.  It’s a chance to get students involved in all their union’s activities but it’s also an opportunity to find out from them where they think we can improve what we offer.  Last week we had our first campus-wide feedback session where we had some really useful and very encouraging comments from students.  A number of people said they found their lecturers were very upfront with them, accessible, helpful and easy to talk to, all of which is excellent news. 

There was also some very pleasing feedback about the social aspect of UCMK.  We’ve worked very hard on making this a place where people will want to be.  Honourable mentions included our lovely, shiny new pool table and the recent FIFA tournament which will most definitely be repeated.  On that note we’re holding a Christmas Lunch on 11^th December with a slap-up meal and some carol singing.  It will be fun to see what some of our overseas students make of a traditionally British festive celebration.  It’s all about building a community.  UCMK will be home for an important period in these people’s lives and it is incumbent on us to make sure they truly feel at home.

The clock is counting down now towards the launch of MK:Smart and next week the partners will gather to dot some digital “’'s” and cross “t’s” before the hardware is installed here early in January.  It’s been worth the wait and all of those involved including the Open University, Dell and BT are itching to get started.  Once the hardware is in place on campus there will be a period of testing the equipment to ensure it’s ready for the Big Data to be gathered and analysed.  In theory this assessment period could last until November but we’re hopeful of being able to actually start the project proper some months before that.  Never before has a city anywhere in the world attempted such an ambitious undertaking cross-referencing such massive quantities of information relating to water, power and transport.  It could provide a blueprint for the way cities are designed, developed and run in the twenty-first century, and for UCMK to be home of the city’s data hub is beyond exciting. 

Finally, we held an Open Day on Saturday and it was great to see people coming to take a look round to see if they might want to apply to study here.  I would always urge anyone applying to university to take the opportunity to go to see the place and talk to people before they make up their minds.  Choosing a university can inform the whole direction of the rest of a person’s life so you have to find a course which excites you but also a place where you feel you could live for two, three or four years.  If you are looking now, the very best of luck with your search; perhaps we’ll see you here at UCMK very soon.

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