Migration Crisis & IT

3

October

2016

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Migration Crisis & IT

In the summer of 2015 the refugee crisis in Europe was one of the main topics. That summer a million refugees entered Europe, which resulted in a crisis for the European countries. They had to cope with the division of these refugees from countries as Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq (BBC 2016).

When entering Europe the refugees went to different countries across Europe. There was no proper division; thus this had a severe impact on European countries. For example, Germany received over 476,000 asylum applications that year. However, this is just based on legal applications, the total amount was twice as large (BBC 2016).

Large amount of refugees were allocated to different countries and this was not easy for both parties. This crisis resulted in an information overload that was difficult to manage for countries. How do they keep track of all the refugee information and what do they do with the information? To tackle, handle and track all the data the United Nations started to use a Mindjet’s SpigitEngage platform (Panburn D). This was originally created for corporations. It also leverages big data analytics with the goal to support the UN with humanitarian activities. The platform brings together create minds and links them with those that need creative ideas.

The platform is a source of crowdsourcing that generates solutions for the migration crisis. Everyone is allowed to come up with solutions for the problems that are stated on the platform. The platform is also available for refugees themselves from a mobile phone. It already resulted in over sixty ideas that were groundbreaking (Panburn D).

The idea of a platform such as SpigitEngage seems to be very useful for both refugees and national organizations. The crowdsourcing allowed generating new ideas and solutions regarding the crisis. In my opinion, it is effective that this platform was made available to refugees, as it allows them to have a voice and help others. It is a strong concept and I think it would be even better if it allows refugees to connect with each other but also with locals so they can fully integrate in their new hometown.

References

Panburn D. 2014. “The UN is turning to big data and crowdsourcing to tackle the refugee crisis”, Motherboard,

BBC 2016. “Migrant crisis: Migration in Europa explained in seven charts”, BBC News, 16 February 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911

United Nations 2016, “What do we do”, United Nations, http://www.un.org/en/sections/what-we-do/

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Success rates of innovations: why are they not as high as you would expect?

13

September

2016

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The large technological developments allow the consumers to enjoy many new great innovative products, however, behind the scenes there are still many failures. Why does the one great idea win it from the other great idea? According to Business Insider UK also Google has many products that were bombed, died or disappeared. This results in a reality check that not everything that Google touches turns into gold.

The Google Glass is one of the best examples of a new innovative product that did not (yet) convince the world. The Google glass made it to the market in 2012 already, but due to the price tag, potential privacy problems and the nerdy Google decided to stop selling the device in January 2015. How can they ensure that, after several improvements they are working on behind the scenes, it will become a success whenever it comes back on the market again?

There are several improvements that could be made when putting a new product on the market, according to a Forbes article. Google missed out on the opportunity to launch the product on a specific day. Giving a specific day that the product can be bought by the public, results in excitement and a desire to be the first to purchase it. Also, there was no real advertising campaign to convince the public that it was a real evolutionary and promising product. It is strange that they would build a hundreds of millions of dollars product, but not spend enough money to promote it. Lastly, from my own perspective, I did not know why I should buy the product. Isn’t that the most important requirement for consumers?

One lesson from these failures is that both the IT management as well as the business management should be in line to make a innovative product a success. This largely has to do with planning and understanding what the customer wants. If this can be aligned, large firms as Google do not have to waste their money on products that do not make it, but they hopefully are then able to increase their success rate. It is never too late to learn. Maybe in a couple of years we will all be walking around with a Glass, who knows?

Sources:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/siimonreynolds/2015/02/05/why-google-glass-failed/3/#2c1ac3c274b5

http://uk.businessinsider.com/discontinued-google-products-2016-8/#lively-googles-virtual-worlds-only-lasted-a-little-over-a-year-google-said-it-created-lively-because-it-wanted-users-to-be-able-to-interact-with-their-friends-and-express-themselves-online-in-new-ways-but-it-just-didnt-catch-on-lively-was-shut-down-in-2008-2

 

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