At the Atlantic New York Ideas conference last week where New York City’s brightest come together to learn about how people are changing the world, a panel “How Big Data Shrinks The  World And Will Change Everything” really stood out to us. In this conversation, the panelists discussed how Big Data can be used in a positive way to impact the way we live and learn about experiences in our every day lives.

In particular Hilary Mason, Chief Scientist of bit.ly and Rachel Haot, Chief Digital Officer of the City of New York chatted about how social data can inform people to create change and how to gather that data to serve content in real time that is both relevant and educational to your audience. For example, many New Yorkers following the City of NYC feed on Twitter during Hurricane Sandy might remember how Haot and her team used social media to alert them to city updates and flood evacuation notices. The overarching theme – big data impacts our lives and benefits us perhaps more than we realize and the possibilities for what we could achieve by accessing the most relevant data sets are limitless.

You can checkout more and watch this panel on the Atlantic New York Ideas website.