Recently, we had the opportunity to catch up with Mark van Rijmenam, Founder of Datafloq and author of “Think Bigger: Developing a Successful Big Data Strategy for Your Business.” As “Thinking Bigger” was written in 2014, we wanted to catch up with the author and get his insights on some current trends in Big Data. Mark was kind of enough to share his take on the current state of Big Data, AI and Blockchain amongst other thoughts. 

How does the hype around AI impact the value potential of Big Data?

A lot, they both need each other. Big Data needs AI to make predictions and AI needs Big Data to be trained.

In looking back at Think Bigger, what would you change?

The book is three years old now, so I would not have changed anything at that time, as I believe the book offers good insights. However, if a new edition would come out, I would, of course, update it with the latest insights.

What do you think of Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods?

Very interesting development, it clearly shows the ambition of Amazon in the retail space. It will probably speed up the implementation of disruptive technologies in brick and mortar stores.

What do you think of AI ChatBots?

AI ChatBots have a lot of potential. I predicted in my annual Big Data Trends 2017 the rise of Conversational AI and the impact will be enormous when AI bots become intelligent enough to have real conversations with people.

With all the potential of Big Data, we still see many failures. What are we doing wrong?

Big Data is challenging, many issues are involved ranging from data governance, security, and privacy. Bias, of course, is a major issue with big data and one that we will not be able to solve at short notice. Big Data is relatively new development (since 2001) and it will take some time for the technology to mature.

How does Blockchain impact Big Data analytics?

Tremendously, the convergence of big data and blockchain offers a lot of opportunities related to big data privacy, security, governance, and morality. It will give back control to the users, data provenance becomes possible and data will become more secure.

In Think Bigger, you suggest that Prescriptive Analytics is the Holy Grail of data analytics, but suggested it was still 5-10 years away. Where are we in the path towards real Prescriptive Analytics?

Developments are rapidly improving the capacity of prescriptive analytics. It is still the holy grail of big data analytics and I guess we are about half way now, meaning 3-6 years before the full-scale adoption of PA across industries and organizations.

Is there one thing on the horizon that really excites you?

The convergence of Big Data, Blockchain and AI which I believe is the holy grail of the organization of tomorrow.

What are you trying to achieve with Datafloq?

We are working on implementing Big Data, Blockchain and AI in the platform to offer a unique, high-quality content platform that provides insights and rewards to its stakeholders.

If our readers what to learn more about what you are up to, where can they learn more?

They can visit my personal website: https://vanrijmenam.nl or visit my LinkedIn profile https://linkedin.com/in/markvanrijmenam where I publish new articles on a weekly basis.