Themes Associated with The Discovery Economy:

a. Smart Enterprise
b. The Future of News and Media.
c. The Analytical Society
d. Discovery Analytics

With connected health capitalising on the Big Data Analytics opportunity as it relates personal data and physical sensing, Insight’s second application domain – the discovery economy – targets an alternative Big Data opportunity. This time the focus is as much about harnessing non-personal (public) data as it is about personal data, and the focus shifts somewhat towards harnessing virtual sensors more than physical sensing technologies. Ultimately, the discovery economy is the set of new products and services that can be developed based on matching the short and long-term needs of individuals and organisations to a real-time picture of information, opportunities, and services. It combines ideas from personalization and recommender systems with location-based services and the real-time social web in order to highlight the common basis for what will become a new generation of discovery-based enterprise and consumer applications that deliver value by connecting the right user with the right information at the right time. This will address core opportunities in important sectors such as information technology (computing, mobile etc), globally traded services, local services (healthcare, retail trade, local advertising, etc) all of which are highlighted by McKinsey as examples of sectors, capable of experiencing significant productivity growth as a result of Big Data opportunities. For example, there is an estimated $600bn global opportunity for businesses to leverage location data in the pursuit of innovative location-based service offerings, while online retailers stand to improve their operating margins by up to 60%, all directly as a result of Big Data market opportunities in the short- to medium-term.

Once again, Ireland is especially well represented when it comes to an industry base that stands to benefit from the discovery economy. Organisations such as Google, Facebook, SAP, Microsoft, Intel, HP, Alcatel-Lucent and others, have already invested significantly in Ireland, with each already playing a leading role in the provision of applications and services that drive the discovery economy. Moreover, the data analytics expertise within Insight, particularly as it relates to personalization, recommendation, media and decision analytics, provides a unique research resource to help Irish organisations, MVC, SMEs and startups alike to capitalise on the next generation of discovery-based applications and services.