In Defense of Data

By Ron Rock

We live in a world where complicated discussion and debate has yielded to tweeting, soundbites and divisive online exchanges. At a time of unprecedented change and complexity, people are increasingly polarized, in part thanks to the manipulation of society through social media, and as a result have less constructive conversations while ingesting one-sided, mass propagated, often fake news. Pessimism seems to pervade every conversation these days. Call it the Misanthropic Period.

Technology – and data in particular – has won a starring role in this misanthropic script. Massive data breaches like those recently afflicting Capital One, Equifax and others have compromised personal financial and identity data and led to calls for new walls to be erected.

The cyber disinformation campaigns of the 2016 election cycle – whether or not they effected the result of the US presidential election – outraged millions and shook basic assumptions about facts and truth. Fingers not pointed at the Kremlin turned swiftly to Silicon Valley, where Twitter, Google and especially Facebook, were dragged before Congress to explain why society should tolerate business models based on the furtive collection and lucrative sale of people’s personal data.

So no, I don’t blame people for some pessimism. And yet, I also think data is getting a bad rap.

Beware the Revolution

The fact is the world is in the midst of a data revolution. As with all revolutions, French, American, sexual or otherwise, major disruptions are inevitable, and mistakes will be made. While more data has been produced in the last 1.5 years than the rest of human history, the one-sided social discourse is promoting anger and fear, while governments are enacting far-reaching and poorly engineered laws like the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Like so many of contemporary society’s challenges, the risk-return calculation needed to properly assess the value of data, the rights entailed in data ownership, and the implications of AI and Machine Learning analytics, cannot be communicated and judged by a single headline or tweet.

Microshare views this dystopian narrative on data as counter-productive. For all the downside risks involved in the transfer and collection of data, we believe the upside is greater by far. Just a short list of data-driven benefits demonstrates how short-sighted data Luddites really are:

• Data on our health and nutrition will extend our lives as wearables and other devices allow remote monitoring and medical treatment to reach otherwise isolated patients;
• Through simple data capture and low-cost analytics, conditions that now go undiagnosed until its too late could catch a potentially fatal cancer or the onset of Alzheimer’s years or decades before they manifest, adding significant years and quality to life;
• Increasing use of data has the potential to eliminate traffic accidents. Remote electric vehicles from cars to buses to delivery vans will render public roadways immeasurably safer and prevent vast emissions of carbon into the atmosphere;
• Leveraging data to understand the true performance metrics of our physical world, from buildings to forests to ice sheets, can help humanity stop and reverse climate change and minimize fossil fuel consumption;
• Sensors monitoring traffic flows, storm-water drainage, air quality, power surges and countless other aspects of modern urban infrastructure will prevent catastrophe and eliminate costly, environmentally damaging waste;
• Data gleaned from mobile payments systems in the far reaches of the developing world shunned by traditional finance – from sub-Saharan Africa to the Andes to Southeast Asia – will enable small farmers, merchants and village craftsmen to access small loans and insurance based on risk calculations drawn from shared data;
• The owners of warehouses, factories, retail stores, residential and office buildings will gain the insight and ability to know exactly how many parking spaces or conference rooms are really needed, whether fire doors are unlocked, how and when to heat or cool parts of a building, and precisely when trash bins need emptying or when elevators or HVAC units need maintenance.

Some of these marvels remain beyond the horizon; some are with us today.

Data Is Our Friend

And at the core of all of it? Data. That’s right, the much-maligned streams of data that fuel end-of-world narratives in Congress, on cable news shows and Hollywood studios.

Data security is an urgent concern, to be sure. But just as unplugging from the Internet is not the solution to the so-called “fake news” problem, ring fencing the data that helps us understand human needs, demands and behaviors is not the solution to cyber-crime. On 9/11, a few dozen evil men hijacked airliners and turned them into deadly weapons. No one suggested that we eliminate airliners as a consequence. Our global payment systems are still subject to fraud, yet we all enjoy a global flow of payment activity, without friction, because the benefits far outweigh the dangers.

Just like these payment systems, data needs to be simple to use, yet securely managed with complete precision and intent. This past year at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said: “Data needs to flow seamlessly across borders, yet still be locked down and secure.” Why is data getting such attention? Because Data is the new oil. It has extreme value, as we have witnessed in the cumulative valuations of Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter and others.  And if something has value, then who owns it, and what can I do with it, matters a lot. So, with ownership and value comes investment, and we see lots of exciting opportunities on the horizon for the productive use of data to better our lives.  This is an important point, again, because we believe that digital data’s benefits will far outstrip its disadvantages in the medium term.

Enter The Digital Twin

“Digital Twin” is the virtual replica of our physical world.  Digital twining, combined with data analytics and machine learning, will disruptively improve the quality of life. We will digitally twin our homes, offices, cities, hospitals, shopping malls, and more. We at Microshare believe that the plummeting cost involved in outfitting the physical world with digital sensors presents an unrivaled opportunity to build social and financial resilience, providing a 24/7, 360-degree view into the performance, vulnerabilities and threats to any given piece of infrastructure.

Until recently, the sensors needed to create a Digital Twin of a complex piece of infrastructure would have been cost prohibitive, requiring an expensive GPS signal, costly maintenance and new batteries every few months or so. But the new generation of IoT sensors cost less than $20, will run for 5-to-10 years on a single battery charge and, by using Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technologies like LoRaWAN, cost less than 25 cents a year to operate. An array of such sensors managed by the secure and compliant Microshare platform and stored in a Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud will bring all the benefits listed above and more.

Bridge trusses. Plumbing joints. Railroad ties. Shipping containers. Cranes and gantries. Elevators, truck tires, escalators, garage doors, support beams, trash chutes and fire safety systems. All these and so many more systems that keep a structure standing, operating, surviving and performing can now be monitored for a very small cost. Throw in dogs, cats, kids, manhole covers, refrigerator doors, and more, to build out a comprehensive Digital Twin of our world.

Microshare to Share

At Microshare, we are committed to helping our clients create a Digital Twin of their organization, and then help them “share” their data, with complete control, compliance and auditability, to create new value.  We have combined our patent pending IoT data ownership and sharing platform and the industries best of breed low LPWAN sensors with the power of Microsoft Azure.  This one two punch provides a comprehensive global solution for the secure capture and sharing of data.

After years of politely leading prospective clients through pitch meetings on the power of our IoT platform to transform their operations, we have recently closed large contracts with some of the world’s leading asset managers and corporations to enable features like predictive maintenance and cleaning, occupancy monitoring, environmental controls and other innovative approaches to Facilities Management (FM), all good uses of data.

The result is not just a healthier balance sheet, but huge improvements in tenant safety as physical plant is maintained with predictive efficiency. This has knock on benefits in terms of tenant convenience and satisfaction, as well as in lowering liability risks for the asset owner.

The data debate is complex. There are countless nuances around data: personal, government, industry, sovereignty, and more. Like any other asset that creates value for society, data will always attract the attention of nefarious characters. But just like payments, aircraft and the networking of proprietary intellectual property, the value add exceeds the risks. It is time to communicate clearly the methods and purposes of data collection and distribution so that societies can develop clear ethical and regulatory standards for data management. At Microshare, this is the filter through which we view the debate over data. We do data at scale, for the right reasons and with the future in mind.  At Microshare, we’re not afraid.

Ron Rock  |  Microshare Co-Founder and CEO