Big Data. A term, which is quite possibly “the” most relevant to India these days, but still unknown in this very same territory. Nevertheless, start-ups in Bangalore are working towards generating real, actionable info from the enormous data which India’s over 1.2 Billion people generate every second. One of those promising start-ups is SpotDy.
Consider this. World’s second largest nation by population and seventh largest by land, and quite possibly, second only to China when it comes to generating Big Data. However, most of that data goes to dump. Why ? Because the Government’s tech infrastructure in India is at its very worse (except obviously for ISRO). Moreover, there’s a dearth of tech professionals who have the required skills to deal with Big Data.
SpotDy, with its roots in India’s Silicon Valley (head-quartered in San Jose, CA) is providing that tech. The company provides numerous products to help regional Governments across the globe generate useful insights from the enormous amount of Citizens’ data which they receive. Apart from helpng Governments, SpotDy has also designed platforms which help upcoming companies in solving their initial market research problems, by providing them with an API for one of its products. Start-ups are hence not required to spend anything on maintenance of separate data sciences team or big data analytics divisions.
SpotDy currently has two products, aimed towards two entirely different market segments.
SpotDy City Pulse is aimed at helping Governments identify major issues related to their respective cities like city sentiments, city health status, infrastructure status and others. To Cut it short, it is a Fitbit smart-band for Cities. SpotDy provides actionable information in beautiful, intuitive visualizations, and that too in real time, thus enabling Governments in setting up plans of action as per city’s actual requirement.
For example, CityPulse tells Governments whether the city sentiment is on the brighter side or the darker one. We often post about or mood -swings on facebook or twitter. Well, City Pulse makes sure that your mood-swing status updates do not go to waste. It aggregates such posts/statuses/tweets through all of your social media accounts to form a dynamic visual report, which the government can easily use to chart out its future plan of action.
SpotDy’s second offering is called the BigAI Web service. The start-up claims that its Big AI platform is world’s first data science platform for developers. It aims at providing a completely new experience to developers when it comes to big data analysis by using SpotDy’s deep data science engine. Big AI offers three capabilities as of now which include :
- BatchAI: A BigAI platform web service that processes vast amounts of data to extract intelligence in a cost effective and time efficient manner
- StreamAI: A BigAI platform web service that allows developers to make real time calls to our platform and reap in the benefits of data sciences instantaneously
- ServeAI: A fully managed data store web service that makes it simple and cost-effective to retrieve actionable insights from your processed BatchAI data
Through its Big AI solution, SpotDy aims to help developers by integrating data that includes various data connectors to deal with different data source types. Since SpotDy’s entire infrastructure is cloud-based, data processing speeds won’t be a headache for developers. SpotDy claims that’s its Big AI solution can solve data to the tune of petabytes, in a rapid and efficient manner.
Though still in Beta Phase, SpotDy already has some notable Government (for its City Pulse solution) and private clients to its name. The start-up is currently working with the Louisville Govt by providing valuable information regarding housing and wellness, jobs and career development, public safety, transportation, garbage and recycling, education and libraries etc. to authorities.
As for India, Sairam, who is one of the co-founders of SpotDy tells me that they are already in talks with various city governments, who are eager to get visually appealing and important info through SpotDy’s data analysis engine. Moreover, SpotDy may find even more Government customers, due to PM Modi’s aggressive push for developing smart cities across India.
Big Data companies are already a hit in the west. As for India, the entire market is still pretty much in its infancy, thus explaining a very low head-count when it comes to start-ups providing Big Data Analytics/Solutions. However, Governments have started realising the immense potential which a big data analysis engine such as SpotDy could posses, thus further helping in effective governance.
It’s still a long way though, and would require an aggressive push by governments at various levels, to discover the enormously important information which Big Data could provide.
