Big Data

Hannah Mayer. 9/2020. “AI in Enterprise: In Tech We Trust.. Maybe Too Much?Edited by Jin H. Paik and Jenny Hoffman.Abstract

While there are dispersed resources to learn more about artificial intelligence, there remains a need to cultivate a community of practitioners for cyclical exposure and knowledge sharing of best practices in the enterprise. That is why Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard launched the AI in the Enterprise series, which exposes managers and executives to interesting applications of AI and the decisions behind developing such tools. 

In the September session of the AI in Enterprise series, HBS Professor and co-author of Competing in the Age of AI, Karim R. Lakhani spoke with Latanya Sweeney about algorithmic bias, data privacy, and the way forward for enterprises adopting AI. They explored how AI and ML can impact society in unexpected ways and what senior enterprise leaders can do to avoid negative externalities. Professor of the Practice of Government and Technology at the Harvard Kennedy School and in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, director and founder of the Data Privacy Lab, and former Chief Technology Officer at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Latanya Sweeney pioneered the field known as data privacy and launched the emerging area known as algorithmic fairness.

Quest for Quakes

QuakeFinder, an R&D project within Stellar Solutions Inc., has collected a decades worth of data along major faultlines using specialized sensors. The goal of this 2015 NASA challenge was to characterize pre-earthquake electromagnetic signals and develop a forecasting algorithm capable... Read more about Quest for Quakes

Karim R. Lakhani and Akiko Kanno. 2017. Weathernews. Harvard Business School Case. Harvard Business School. Publisher's VersionAbstract

Tomohiro Ishibashi (Bashi), chief executive officer for B to S, and Julia Foote LeStage, chief innovation officer of Weathernews Inc., were addressing a panel at the HBS Digital Summit on creative uses of big data. They told the summit attendees about how the Sakura (cherry blossoms) Project, where the company asked users in Japan to report about how cherry blossoms were blooming near them day by day, had opened up opportunities for the company's consumer business in Japan. The project ultimately garnered positive publicity and became a foothold to building the company's crowdsourcing weather-forecasting service in Japan. It changed the face of weather forecasting in Japan. Bashi and LeStage wondered whether the experience could be applied to the U.S. market.