Jakarta International College

When you go surfing around the internet or social media, you might notice some advertisements that show items you have seen before or seem interesting to you. You might be wondering what kind of skill did these advertisers use to know your preference. Today, let’s talk about Data Science, the discipline that might know you better than yourself.

Nowadays, Data Science has become so popular in our daily life. You can feel its influence from simple things like when e-commerce apps understand your daily needs or even a self-driving car that safely drives you home.

So what is Data Science? Data Science is a blend of various tools, algorithms, and machine learning principles to discover hidden patterns from raw data. People who expertise in Data Science are called Data Scientists. Data Scientists can produce various information by using exploratory analysis, see data from many angles, and use advanced machine learning algorithms to identify future occurrences.

 

Data in traditional systems are mostly structured and small in size; therefore, it is easy to be analyzed. But nowadays, data comes from many different sources, such as financial logs, text files, multimedia forms, sensors, and instruments. This creates many unstructured data that is unable to be analyzed using simple Business Intelligence tools. This is where Data Science is needed. 

Data Science since then become so popular and being used in various domains. Now let's learn how Data Science is used in Businesses

  • Customer Behavior Analysis

    Data science enables you to understand your customers' precise requirements and behaviour from the existing data like their past browsing history, purchase history, age, and income. You might already have those data earlier but is unable to create a conclusion, but now with the vast amount and variety of data, you can train models more effectively and recommend the product to your customers with more precision. Wouldn't it be a fantastic way to bring more business to your organization?

  • Decision Making

    Data Science also holds an important role in decision making. For example, smart cars use Data Science to make small decisions for you,  What if your car is smart enough to drive you home? Self-driving vehicles collect live data from various sensors, including radars, cameras, and lasers, to create a map of its surroundings. Based on this data, it can make small decisions for you, like when to speed up, when to slow down, when to overtake, and where to take a turn – all is done using advanced machine learning algorithms.
  • Predictive Analysis

    Data Science can also be used in predictive analytics. Let's take weather forecasting as an example. Data from ships, aircraft, radars, satellites can be collected and analyzed to build models. These models not only forecast the weather but also help in predicting the occurrence of any natural calamities. It help us to take appropriate measures beforehand and save many precious lives.

 

Below is an infographic on how Data Science being used in businesses

 

Sample of Data Science in the world :

UBER EATS: DELIVERING FOOD WHILE IT'S HOT

The role of Data Science: The data scientists at Uber Eats, Uber's food-delivery app, have a relatively simple goal: getting hot food delivered quickly. Though, making that happen across the country takes machine learning, advanced statistical modelling, meteorologist, and complex calculations. The Uber Eats team has to predict how every possible variable — from storms to holiday rushes — will impact traffic and cooking time to optimize the full delivery process.

TINDER: FINDING LOVE WITH SCIENCE

Role of Data Science: Couples that met on Tinder should not be embarrassed to say so. In fact, their match should be credited to the data scientists working behind the company. A carefully-crafted algorithm works behind the swiping scenes, boosting the probability of matches. A long time ago, this algorithm relied on users' Elo scores, essentially an attractiveness ranking. Now, though, it prioritizes conflicts between active users, users near each other, and users who seem like each other's "types" based on their swiping history. So if anyone asked how you met with your boyfriend/girlfriend, you can tell them you met through science.

INSTAGRAM: MARKETING WITH A PERSONAL TOUCH

Location: Menlo Park, California

Role of Data Science: Instagram uses data science to target its sponsored posts, which hawk everything from trendy sneakers to the cat videos you watch in between classes. "The company's data scientists pull data from Instagram and its owner, Facebook, which has the exhaustive web-tracking infrastructure and detailed information on many users, including age and education. From there, the team crafts algorithms that convert users' likes and comments, their usage of other apps, and their web history into predictions about the products they might buy.