By Silma Suba

Using the term Big Data in a conversation makes many people feel puzzled, anxious and confused – mostly because they have no idea what it is.

But, despite the confusion, 70 students, staff and faculty members of Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q), along with Doha media several other media specialists, attended the “BigD8ta” Symposium recently which was hosted by NU-Q.

According to Business News Daily, “Big Data” refers to the vast amount of information businesses are gathering these days. All of the data gathered from different sources becomes so immense that is too difficult to process using traditional methods, such as databases and software

According to John Pavlik, Associate Dean of research at NU-Q, the main aim of the conference was to provide a roadmap to the emerging topic of Big Data so students and faculty would have a solid intellectual foundation to understand IT. It also aimed at providing students with a critical set of intellectual and professional resources that will help them prepare for their careers, careers where Big Data will play a crucial role.

“Big Data are transforming virtually every aspect of journalism, media and communication. They are reshaping how media professionals do their work, the content of the media, and media industries themselves, including their business and funding models,” Pavlik said. “Big Data bring into sharp relief a number of critical social issues, as well, including surveillance, privacy and freedom of expression. For all these reasons, Big Data is vital to a media school.”

The introduction ceremony of the conference was hosted by NU-Q Dean Everette Dennis. Khalifa Haroon, founder of the community website ILoveQatar.net, spoke as did Kenneth Neil Cukier, data editor of The Economist, with Cukier speaking via Skype conference call.

Speakers included Larry Birnbaum, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science in Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern, Mohammed Haddad, data journalist at Al Jazeera Networks; Kathy McKeown, professor of computer science at Columbia University and Martha Stone, CEO of World Newsmedia Network.

“We look at data as it is everyday, but we also need to see how it affects people. As journalists, we need to keep asking ourselves how much information do our readers need?” Mohammed Haddad said. “There are real people behind the data, they are not just numbers!”

“When you do find data, you can open your eyes to a whole new world of asking and answering questions,” Haddad added.

“ I was really fascinated by the conference because I had a chance to discover a new part of the media world that I hadn’t thought of before,” said Omaima Es-Samaali, freshmen at NU-Q. “I didn’t know we could do such cool stuff just by collecting some data! There’s so much information that we can access through big data.”