Monthly Archive for February, 2011

Wanted: Data Scientists to Turn Information Into Gold

Published on February 28, 2011 in Global Strategy. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Data scientists will increasingly become vital employees as companies create and use more and more data and try to tap the river of data they’re generating to improve their products or build new business opportunities [Source].

But what is a data scientist? Hilary Mason, a data scientist at Bit.ly, has a good definition. It’s someone who can obtain, scrub, explore, model and interpret data, blending hacking, statistics and machine learning. It’s a set of skills that go beyond many existing job titles and it’s increasingly in demand [Data Scientist].

The ability to take data – to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it’s going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades, not only at the professional level but even at the educational level for elementary school kids, for high school kids, for college kids. Because now we really do have essentially free and ubiquitous data. So the complimentary scarce factor is the ability to understand that data and extract value from it [Source].

How internet companies profit from data on the web

Published on February 27, 2011 in Global Strategy. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Across the internet economy, companies are compiling masses of data on people, their activities, their likes and dislikes, their relationships with others and even where they are at any particular moment—and keeping mum.

“They are uncomfortable bringing so much attention to this because it is at the heart of their competitive advantage,” says Tim O’Reilly, a technology insider and publisher. “Data are the coin of the realm. They have a big lead over other companies that do not ‘get’ this.”

Re-using data represents a new model for how computing is done, says Edward Felten of Princeton University. “Looking at large data sets and making inferences about what goes together is advancing more rapidly than expected. ‘Understanding’ turns out to be overrated, and statistical analysis goes a lot of the way.” Many internet companies now see things the same way. Facebook regularly examines its huge databases to boost usage. It found that the best single predictor of whether members would contribute to the site was seeing that their friends had been active on it, so it took to sending members information about what their friends had been up to online

Urbanisation: How big can cities get?

Published on February 27, 2011 in Global Strategy. 0 Comments Tags: .

The world is in the throes of a sweeping population shift from the countryside to the city. Underpinning this transformation are the economies of scale that make concentrated urban centers more productive. This productivity improvement from urbanisation has already delivered substantial economic growth and radically reduced poverty in countries such as China. The growth of cities has the potential for further growth and poverty reduction across many emerging markets [Source].

However, we are now seeing cases where the growth rates of some large cities have begun to slow. In addition, the increased complexity of large size can overwhelm the ability to manage. When this happens, cities can become disastrous mixtures of slums and gridlock, raising the question of whether there is a maximum size for a workable city.

Managing the opportunities and challenges of cities is both vital and urgent as global urbanization rushes ahead on a dramatic scale. The share of the world’s population living in cities has recently surpassed 50 percent. By 2025, we see another 1.2 billion people swelling those ranks—95 percent of whom will live in developing countries. The reasons for this rise in growth are not hard to fathom [Source].

Urbanisation has been a cornerstone in the economic development of countries. South Korea’s economic miracle—an increase in real GDP per capita of more than ten times since 1960—was enabled by a surge in the urban population from around 25 percent to 80 percent of the total population. Urban centers foster the growth of higher-productivity jobs and industries and reduce the cost of delivering basic services [Source].

Cleantech 2.0 Is on Its Way

Published on February 27, 2011 in Greentech. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

A learning curve — it’s starting to happen slowly but surely for investors in the cleantech industry. That second wave — or Cleantech 2.0 — will likely be more focused on private equity, will look to scale some of the already proven innovations, and will be far more global in scale.

“We got really excited about this growth area,” said Mondre. The bulk of funding for cleantech has gone into early stage high-risk companies, and there’s been very limited capital going into helping people scale businesses once they’ve reached technological feasibility [Source].

The Rise of Generation C

Published on February 23, 2011 in Global Strategy and Social Media. 0 Comments Tags: .

By 2020, the demographic we call Generation C — connected, communicating, computerised, and, as a rule, born after 1990 — will make up 40 percent of the population in the U.S., Europe, and the BRIC countries, and 10 percent of the rest of the world. By then, they will constitute the largest single cohort of consumers worldwide [Source].

This is the first generation that has never known any reality other than that defined and enabled by the Internet, mobile devices, and social networking. They have owned various handheld devices all their lives, so they are intimately familiar with them and use them for as much as six hours a day. They all have mobile phones, yet they prefer sending text messages to talking with people. More than 95 percent of them have computers, and more than half use instant messaging to communicate, have Facebook pages, and watch videos on YouTube [Source].

Their familiarity with technology; reliance on mobile communications; and desire to remain in contact with large networks of family members, friends, business contacts, and people with common interests will transform how we work and how we consume. How businesses prepare for the Connected Generation’s transformation of the consumer and business landscape will determine their success [Source].

Food Prices at Dangerous Level

Published on February 16, 2011 in Emerging Markets. 0 Comments Tags: .

The World Bank says food prices are at “dangerous levels” and have pushed 44 million more people into poverty since last June. According to the latest edition of its Food Price Watch, prices rose by 15% in the four months between October 2010 and January this year. Food price inflation is felt disproportionately by the poor, who spend over half their income on food [Source].

The World Bank’s president, Robert Zoellick, said in a statement: “Global food prices are rising to dangerous levels and threaten tens of millions of poor people around the world.” He also said that rising food prices were an aggravating factor of the unrest in the Middle East, although not its primary cause [Source].

Deutsche Boerse and NYSE Euronext Seal Deal

Published on February 15, 2011 in International Finance. 0 Comments Tags: , .


Deutsche Boerse AG and NYSE Euronext on Tuesday unveiled a widely expected merger agreement that would create an exchange powerhouse by becoming the world’s largest owner of equities and derivatives markets [Source].

The merger deal creates an unprecedented exchange powerhouse with more than $20 trillion (12.4 trillion pounds) in annual trading volume and operations in Germany, France, Britain, Amsterdam, Portugal, Belgium, and the United States [Source].

Together, Deutsche Boerse’s Eurex unit and NYSE Euronext’s London-based Liffe unit would dominate European exchange-based futures trading, with more than 90 percent overall, raising antitrust questions among market regulators. After a few years off that included the financial crisis and the beginning of a global regulatory revamp, the world’s exchange operators are back in the takeover game [Source].

“Overall, we find this transaction compelling on an operational and strategic basis,” wrote BMO Capital Markets analysts in a Monday note examining the potential tie-up between Deutsche Boerse and NYSE Euronext.

“However, we also have concerns about the deal, most of which relate to timing and likelihood of regulatory approvals, synergy realization, as well as longer-term management and cultural issues,” BMO [Source]

Greentech VC: Billion Dollar January

Published on February 14, 2011 in Greentech. 0 Comments Tags: .

A huge month in terms of dollars, deals and sector scope. Part 2 covers biofuels, energy efficiency, smart grid, wind and everything else.

Part 1 covered January VC investment in solar, energy storage and transportation. Today’s list, Part 2, covers the smart grid, biofuels, energy efficiency, water and more.

U.S. venture capital investments in greentech totaled $3.7 billion in 2010, according to the MoneyTree Report based on data from Thomson Reuters. The global number was $7.8 billion, according to the Cleantech Group although that group’s numbers tend to run high due to a liberal definition of what constitutes cleantech. Strong VC numbers function as a proxy for a healthy greentech industry.

In any case, if the first month of this year is any indication, and it most likely is not, the greentech VC train is picking up steam with almost $1 billion worth of green VC deals in the month of January [Source].

Nokia revamp includes Microsoft

Published on February 11, 2011 in Global Strategy. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Nokia Oyj, the world’s biggest maker of mobile phones, said it’s forming a software partnership with Microsoft a bet that together the two companies can better challenge Google and Apple.

Under the plan unveiled today, Nokia and Microsoft will combine assets and jointly develop mobile products. The two companies will collaborate on joint marketing. Nokia’s Maps product will become a core part of Microsoft’s services, while Microsoft’s development tools will create applications for Nokia Windows phones [Source].

“Nokia and Microsoft will combine our strengths to deliver an ecosystem with unrivalled global reach and scale,” Elop said at a press conference in London. “It’s now a three-horse race.”

VCs flocking to mobile photos

Published on February 2, 2011 in Social Media. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Instagram, the startup behind a popular iPhone application for editing and sharing photos, just announced that it has raised $7 million in funding led by Benchmark Capital.

Instagram also unveiled some famous new angel investors, including Quora co-founder/former Facebook chief technology officer Adam D’Angelo, Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey, and Lowercase Capital’s Chris Sacca.

Noticeably absent from the investor lineup is Sequoia Capital, which was earlier rumored to be backing Instagram. Sequoia did end up investing in blogging service Tumblr, which is so photo-heavy that it could be seen as a photo-sharing site.