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WeDo_Technologies_Miguel_LopesThe mysterious disappearance of flight MH370 puzzled the world, bringing deep sadness and grief to the hearts of many people across the world and especially to the relatives and friends of the passengers and crew.

In WeDo Technologies we all fly very frequently, and in the past few years I’ve been flying mostly with Malaysia Airlines. Because of this I have found myself following news of the search obsessively as it progresses. While I’m writing this article, efforts are being made to find debris sighted by satellite in the South Indian Ocean that might, just might, be from the missing plane.    

As passenger I enjoy flying Malaysia Airlines. Although it isn’t a fancy airline, I must say that I’ve found myself welcomed and well cared for while on its flights, and I have never felt that security of any kind had been compromised. But, as often happens in business and life, circumstances bring the unexpected upon us, and unfortunately in the aviation business it usually has a toll on human lives. We still hope to find all well, but the prospects looks grim at this moment.

Few would expect that one of the most sophisticated commercial planes could vanish from the sky with almost no trace. In our industry and in our own lives we are heading towards being connected at all times through technology that has changed the way we learn, work, socialize and play.

Amazing works of engineering, modern planes use some of the most sophisticated technologies to communicate. However, this time that communication was stopped, and the world fell powerless to explain where it is and how it failed.         

Many nations have combined all of their available resources in a large scale search and recover operation, including some resources we were not even aware existed. But even so, it represented a monumental task that, despite best efforts, has proven to be slow for a constantly connected society like ours.

Unfortunately it has also become clear that world’s capability to correlate and process the enormous amount of data required, including satellite data, is well below world’s expectations especially when something as unexpected as this happens.

Modern aviation equipment has grown remarkably in sophistication, bristling with sensors that can monitor almost every aspect of machine performance.

Gus Hunt, the chief technology officer of the CIA, once said at a Big Data conference, "The value of any piece of information is only known when you can connect it with something else that arrives at a future point in time.” Big Data is very much like the sensors mentioned above. Yes, they help us avoid occasional surprises and disturbances and, perhaps, even avoid some accidents. But it can also blind us to the fact that the problem at hand requires a more radical approach. As an adhesive bandages, Big Data is excellent. But adhesive bandages are useless when the patient needs chemotherapy.

As in the search for the MH370, blending Big Data information from disparate data sources is a key part of the analytical process. Having the tools to connect the dots allows you to verify that the way you’re blending is data accurate and gives a meaning to all the data sources available. This is the key to finding the needle in the haystack.

The question now is, “Is Big Data really so big? Or are we not prepared to take advantage of it?”

Sadly, we are all still unprepared to do better for flight MH370. Let’s hope one day we all learn what happened and that this knowledge can be used to build a better world.

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