Big Data

What is Big Data?

Big data is digital information that is available at high granularity in both space and time. It has the potential to fill critical gaps in our knowledge about the lives of women and girls. This data may be produced as a by-product of everyday interactions with digital products, or services, such as mobile devices and internet activity. This data holds great potential as a source of gender insights because it is often available at an individual level; it conveys what people do (e.g., behavior shown through mobile phone use), not what they say (e.g., survey response); and it is produced and recorded continuously without extra cost.

Data2X has influenced academic and private sector data scientists to focus on priority gender data challenges in their work by landscaping the field and funding pioneering research using many different kinds of digital information, including cell phone, social media, and satellite data.