Saving and improving bottom lines are all well and good, but data analytics can also help save and improve lives.
There is no doubt that data analytics, when done right, can add an immense amount of value to a business, whether that’s by helping to drive profits, mitigate risks, reduce costs or streamline business operations overall. However, data analytics can make a difference in a more humanitarian way, where the focus is on improving people’s standard of living and well-being rather than growing margins. Saving and improving bottom lines are all well and good, but data analytics can also help save and improve lives.
Such is the case with non-profit organization PATH who is supporting the Zambian government’s ambitious campaign to eliminate malaria by 2020 through the project called “Visualize No Malaria” (#visualizenomalaria). Despite the great progress that has been made over the past 15 years, malaria still continues to take its toll on large populations across the African continent. However, things are changing; PATH is actively helping in this effort to eradicate the parasite by putting data center-stage. By bringing it together, blending it, cleaning it, analyzing it and visualizing it, so workers in the field can get deep insights into mosquito behaviors fast.
And here at Exasol, we’re excited to be working with PATH too, supporting them in their endeavor by enabling them to put vast volumes of important data and information into Exasol’s Loading...in-memory analytic database on Amazon Web Services. With Exasol, PATH can help professionals perform highly complex queries of not just “Loading...big data” but truly “massive data” with speeds that enable almost instant rendering, allowing for real-time analysis.
What’s more, PATH is using complementary data blending and visualization technologies from Alteryx and Tableau in order to ensure that data insights can be brought to life quickly and put to good use in the field. Other partners involved in the project include Mapbox, DataBlick, Twilio and Slalom Consulting, all of whom are also working with PATH to help them assist the Zambian government.
In the case of Exasol, what we bring to the game is performance. As Jeff Bernson, senior director of PATH’s Results Management, Measurement and Learning Department, puts it: “If you’re trying to inspire the usage of data among counterparts and decision makers, watching a spinning wheel and waiting for dashboards to render can often be a deal breaker. Partnering with Exasol and Tableau is helping us tackle challenges with access and speed to data and truly aligns with our focus to develop and apply transformative innovation in low resource settings.”
Data analytics has many benefits, but when it delivers fast insights that save lives, it drives home the point that there is an inherently bigger and better advantage of using data analytics for more than just making money.
If you’d like to learn more about this worthwhile project, head over to http://visualizenomalaria.org/ And if you’d like to learn more about how Exasol is supporting PATH’s endeavors, read the news release.
Finally, if you want to experience the power of Exasol for yourself, download the Free Small Business Edition at www.Exasol.com/download