Big data is not only hot in the startup world but also in the university. Stanford, with its intimate access to Silicon Valley is most readily associated with the study of big data. But UC Berkeley, the other great university in the Bay Area, is hot on Stanford’s heels in terms of making sense of our new data driven economy. And later this week (May 31-June 1), Berkeley is hosting a conference about big data entitled Data Edge which promises to explore many of the most interesting questions about defining, understanding and extracting value from big data.
Earlier this week, Professor Marti Hearst from Berkeley’s illustrious School of Information came into our San Francisco studio to talk to me about data. Not only did Hearst try to define for me our “age of big data”, but she also discussed what Berkeley is doing to encourage and incubate big data entrepreneurs, particularly in the areas of healthcare and privacy. And, of course, she also told me more about Berkeley’s Data Edge conference, an event that will include speeches from luminaries as distinguished as Google Chief Scientist Hal Varian, Microsoft Senior Researcher Danah Boyd and DJ Patil, Greylock’s Data Scientist in Residence.