To learn more about Pangaea X, its contribution to data, analytics, data democratization, and data mining, TECHx Executive Editor Rabab Zehra chatted with Jadd Elliot Dib, Founder and CEO of Pangaea X. Let’s take a deeper look at the responses we received.
We felt like there was a gap in the market and the big established companies were not giving that gap enough attention. We are entering a new age, the digital age, the age of data, the tech age, call it what you want but entering a new age, gives birth to new skills and expertise which in turn creates new professionals & freelancers. We are no longer living in the old days where the word freelancer is only associated with a Graphic, Web or Logo Designer. Data professionals, statisticians, ETL experts, Predictive programmers and many more have needed a place to call their own and that is what Pangaea X is. An online supercontinent for all things data.
We are creating a data analytics ecosystem, where we bring together the world’s best Data Analysts and Scientist freelancers from across the world onto a single platform and open them to a multitude of job opportunities. The platform connects them with potential clients by providing them with a place where they can showcase their work, expertise requirements and navigate the difficulties of finding and completing jobs.
Businesses collect data, every business does, every business must. This is the world we live in now. Whether through online apps, websites, ads, sales, in-person transactions, security cameras, face mask detection cameras, personal tendencies, preferences and otherwise is being collected. To put it simply, imagine a world where companies had the answers to their “how to optimize” questions.
No doubt that data analytics will help businesses optimize their productivity and efficiency, help them better forecast and plan their business operations.
Companies use data analytics to help improve business performance, plan better, deliver an enhanced customer service experience and make better decisions, although data analytics can still be very overwhelming for non-technical employees in organizations.
IT’s job has never been to safeguard data or being the guardians or custodians of the company or department data. You do not need to be IT or have the technical background to have the right to access data. One department’s data is another’s gold mine. For example, Marketing would love to see Sales data, to give them an idea about their target audience, are their patterns in this audience, can I find a way to identify common traits on who we sold X to, or at what time of the day or the time of year so that I can now just jump straight to it and target this ‘group of people’ directly.
Data democratization means that data is available and accessible to everyone across the business. The objective is to make data available for everyone, so they can make a better and more expedited decision leading to more business prospects.
Any company that decides to make data accessible to everyone should be backed up by strong governance, so data is managed carefully. Obviously, data democratization cannot be applicable across all entities, for example governments cannot democratise data to all employees as it would have serious repercussions on classified information.
Companies are still concerned about the misinterpretation of data by non-technical people that may lead to poor decisions. In addition, the increased number of users can lead to an increased data security risk, potentially resulting in security breaches. However, more and more companies believe in data liberalization to enable and ensure better data-driven decisions.
It’s still however too early to know the full impact of data democratization across all entities, but it will definitely change the way we make business decisions allowing and empowering employees to have full visibility on the data their companies collect and gain insights into areas where they could not before.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) implemented in 2018 is a perfect example to show that only recently did the world start learning about how to handle data, and the story hasn’t ended, it is still being written. That should serve as guidance to companies, if governments & countries are still figuring it out, then it’s okay if your organization doesn’t have all the answers.
I believe data analytics, as an industry, has a very bright future however “data” itself has a bumpy road ahead. Between the power struggle of data ownership going to the average individual or the giant tech company, to the scammers using peoples data against them, to global governments controlling and/or tracking every individual in a breach of privacy. I just think we should all remember one thing, data is as good or bad as the individual that has access to it.
We will surely see a lot more in terms of automation – which is essential as it frees up the analyst to focus on other important activities. Data democratization will definitely see more traction in the future, better user experience, as users want simple and engaging interaction with their analytics tools. Automation Platform vs. Fragmented Tools is another trend we are witnessing, however, this may be challenging as integrating different solutions can be expensive and complicated. Businesses will invariably implement analytics as a core business function, but this would require a collaborative effort within and outside an organization.
I think I touched a little bit on this above but just as a summary I’ll give you an analogy. Imagine you’re a kid in an exam. You have a box available to you with all of the answers required to ace your exam. You just don’t know which answer is for which question. Companies have been mining and gathering data for years now but not using it to its fullest potential.
