Thank you for that introduction.

Today, I would like to talk to you

about why I believe that big data is good data.

And I am going to explain why I think that

by talking through another passion of mine, which is cities.

Some of you may already be aware,

but in 2008, we passed an important tipping point globally

whereby now more people live in cities

than they do in rural environments across the world.

And that trend is set to continue.

We have millions of people moving into cities across the world.

So that, by the time a majority of this audience is retirement age,

70% of the world's population will live in cities.

Cities are also proving slightly problematic.

They are the cornerstones of consumption.

They take up just 3% of the world's land surface area,

and yet they are responsible for 75% of global resource consumption.

So when we're thinking about sustainability,

that battle will either be won

or indeed lost, in our cities.

Thirdly, cities are proving to be more powerful than ever.

We are seeing mayors to become pragmatic global leaders

willing to take on issues that nation states are struggling with.

They're also willing to collaborate, to come together,

and the compact of mayors at the recent UN Climate Summit in September

was testament to this.

So whilst we have this rise of the city

with all its challenges, and its opportunities,

we also have within the same generation an incredible shift,

and that is the digital revolution.

The Internet has transformed our lives.

It's funny--

When I think back to a time when I was home after school,

and a gentleman came to the door, a salesman,

and he was selling encyclopedias.

And these were physical books

that you would buy, and you would have on your bookshelf,

and you would refer to them when you were doing your homework.

(Laughter) and it's like-- It's life before Google!

it feels like an eon ago.

but, you know, I don't consider myself to be that old.

And this is not just about how the Internet has also transformed

the way we search for information, the way we educate ourselves.

This is also about the fact that all manner of appliances and devices

are increasingly online, increasingly connected,

to the point that by next year,

there will be double the number of devices online

than there are people on the planet.

And each of these devices,

these tiny sensors, these smart TVs, these connected cars,

they are each creating a tiny, continuous vapor trail.

And it's the aggregation of these vapor trails into a common place

which creates the big, a big data.

90% of the data that exist today

did not exit 3 years ago.

Which is crazy, right?

And so, when we are thinking about

we have the rise of the city, and we have the explosion of big data,

it's when you bring these two things together,

it's at this point of convergence I think things get really interesting.

And that's the exact field of work that I am in.

So in the context of the city,

you have these millions of data streams being generated,

New York generates a terabyte of data a day.

This data is coming from traffic lights,

from energy meters, from people's mobile phones,

and its the ability to bring together these data streams

that allows you to better sense the city.

To better understand its metabolism in real time.

To better match supply with demand for resources.

And it's my belief that this is the tool

that we use to better design and run our cities in the future,

to secure the future of prosperity.

So perhaps I could give you a couple of examples.

The first example is in US cities,

and in the context of crime.

The use of acoustic sensors which are calibrated to detect gun shots

have shown that, while people assume that people would report a gun shot heard

around 80% of the time it was heard,

the reality was actually people only reported it around 10% of the time.

So imagine this asset class

to be able to understand in which neighborhoods,

at which times of the night or day these things were occurring

helps the police to deploy precious resources.

A second, completely different example, and this time it's really interesting,

because they're using the public to actually help gather their big data set

so in the case of Amsterdam,

they are actually providing citizens with small umbrellas

which have the ability to detect the level of rain fall at any given time.

And combined with a small app on citizen's phones,

they are then becoming the crowdsource sensing

that enables the city to understand the real-time propensity for flood risk.

That's just two good data examples.

I think if we took a step back,

and perhaps if I'd asked you when you walked into the auditorium this afternoon,

what do you think of, when you think of big data?

I think a majority of people

would have connotations of Google or Facebook.

We might presume this new commodity is something

that requires a complex machinery to refine it,

and is something that will remain under the auspices

of large private sector players, maybe a bit like oil.

Don't get me wrong, I think companies like Google and Facebook

have a role to play in this future economy,

but I would like to pose it

that it's our cities that stand to benefit the most.

But that's if we get the right mindset,

and critically, it's if we get

the public and private sector to working together effectively.

This first came into my consciousness around three years ago.

I was working with the city of Copenhagen,

and we were starting, as we do,

to unpack the challenges of the city and figure out how we could solve them.

And so, one area that Copenhageners are interested in helping, in solving

is they want to reduce the energy spend at the municipal building stock.

They own over 1,000 buildings across the city,

and they want to reduce their energy expenditure

and the emissions that go with it.

A second area they are looking to improve is

they want to be able to make it easier for people to find a car parking space

when they arrive in the city center

to stop them from driving around looking for a car parking spot,

and reducing local air quality causing emissions.

And as we dug into this problem, it became clear

that the city had a really good grasp on the problem from their side.

So they understood where the municipal parking spaces were,

and how they were used.

They understood where their buildings were,

what size they were, what their uses were.

But they didn't have an important piece of the puzzle

which was how were the private garages within the city used,

and how does their energy spend,

for example, compare with other buildings of similar size?

Because that's held by The Utility Company.

And you really need to bring together these two parts of the puzzle

to be able to have a holistic view on urban challenges.

But here's the tricky bit

which is how do you get the private sector to be involved?

What is their incentive?

Ultimately, there is a cost affiliated with capturing these data streams,

with storing them, with providing them to a common platform for a common good.

And they are private, they have shareholders,

they need to show financial returns and be remunerated.

And that's when we came across the idea of the urban information marketplace.

The urban information marketplace

is the bringing together of public and private data

into a common platform

which digital entrepreneurs can then subscribe to

to access data streams, to create innovative apps and services,

to make cities more effective.

And this could be open data,

public data which has already been paid for through taxation,

or it could be proprietary data streams gathered by the private sector

for which there is a value attributed.

And suddenly, you have got a sustainable business model,

and suddenly, it's not just the public sector trying to fix the public sector.

A whole pool of innovators are invited to this problem solving.

So why, isn't this coming through faster?

I think, intuitively,

a lot of people would agree that this seems like a good concept,

but I think there are three reasons why this isn't coming through faster.

Firstly,

I think this is related to the fact

that this is technically complex.

There are millions of data streams that need to come together,

and they need to be organized, they need to be anonymized,

they need to be applied the appropriate digital rights,

and offered out appropriately.

And that is technically complex, but I think possible.

Secondly, the public sector needs to lead.

If this is going to be successful,

if this is going to have the appropriate trust,

and the appropriate governance model,

then we need to have the public sector as the key protagonist.

And although digital innovators in the public sector are on the rise,

they are still a rare breed.

Thirdly, there are the issues of data privacy and cyber security

which are valid and which warrant a good discussion,

but I really believe that stringent legislative regimes

could slow this down to the point that is counterproductive.

And when I look at examples from the Netherlands

- where by the roll out of smart energy meters to homes

was held up in court for two years

because of concerns over infringement of human rights -

I think we cannot forget the opportunity cost of inaction.

When I think about examples from the printing press,

imagine if that had undergone a stringent legislation in its early years

how that would have slowed the important transmission of ideas.

We are about to repeat

the last 400 years of civilization building

over the next four decades.

And we have a choice.

We either do that relatively blind

using the techniques we've used in the past few decades,

using intuition versus data-driven decisions,

rehashing the same mistakes,

or we use the tools we have,

we experiment with data sharing,

we bring together the public and private, and we reinvent.

Kevin Kelly, the founder of WIRED Magazine,

often talks to the power of technology to change our lives.

He puts forward that all technology is inherently good,

and that it's up to us, as society, to find the appropriate use for it.

He gives the example of nuclear, and speaks to the fact

that, although it can be used in the context of nuclear weapons,

it can also create thousands of terawatt hours

of emission-free power for our increasingly hot planet.

So my suggestion is that we put big data

to the best use we can possibly.

That we bring together public and private,

that we invite entrepreneurs to the problem solving,

and that we make big data, good data

for the future of our cities, for everyone.

Thank you.

(Applause)