Millions of refugees could benefit from big data — but we're not using it

Today, 65 million people live as refugees or are displaced within their home countries — more than at any other point since the U.N. Refugee Agency began collecting data. Many countries have opened their borders to those displaced by war and famine, but struggle to handle the large influx.

This global crisis is often misunderstood as an overwhelming challenge for which no one can offer a satisfactory solution. But there is a set of tools that would help us, as a global society, take major leaps forward in addressing this crisis. I'm talking about predictive analytics — the statistical science (some would say art) that mines current and past data to predict future outcomes. Read more...