- The Spanish company was recognised for its social service Big Data project aimed at helping those at risk of social exclusion
27/10/2016 12:49
At the Internet of Things Solutions World Congress, taking place in Barcelona, Spanish tech company Bismart was awarded with Best Innovation and Technology Solution. The company was recognised for its social service Big Data project aimed at helping those at risk of social exclusion.
Albert Isern, CEO of Bismart, explained how he came up with the idea. “Two years ago, when my son was six months old, I was rocking him in my arms to comfort his colic. I was on my balcony looking at my neighbours, when I noticed one of them following his cat with a lantern, and I thought, ‘what a stupid game!’ The following night, when I was again comforting my son, I saw the same neighbour doing the same thing. And then again on the third night… and then I realised – ‘He has no electricity!’ I live in the centre of Barcelona, the best Smart City in the world, and poverty is so much closer than what we think.”
Thanks to Big Data and our Data Analytics functionalities, Bismart can correlate different sources of data to identify the most vulnerable in our society with the aim that the public administration can provide them with subsidies. Governments offer help in a reactive way, those who apply for it then receive it. But there are a lot of older people in our society that don’t know that they can access these grants or don’t know how to, or that are maybe too shy to ask.
The challenge of this solution is that it may clash with privacy laws. To get around it, Bismart works with statistical information and aggregated data that provides valuable information to the social services. “Thanks to artificial intelligence we can help governments design the social services budget for next year,” the founder said.
“Big Data will allow social services planning to evolve to a more preventative approach. Thanks to Big Data, we will change the world, Isern concluded.
