The United Nations Global Pulse is an initiative of the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
that attempts to "bring real-time monitoring and prediction to development and aid programs."
History and activities
The United Nations Global Pulse was launched in 2009 as an information initiative by the Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary-General.
[ In August 2013, the '']New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' reported that Global Pulse had its main "Pulse Lab" in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, with a staff of 14 there, plus a staff of 10 in their lab in Jakarta
Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...
, Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
and 8 in their lab in Kampala
Kampala (, ) is the capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,680,000 and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division, and Ruba ...
, Uganda
}), is a landlocked country in East Africa
East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...
.[ The website lists the following three objectives of the initiative:][
# Increasing the number of Big Data for Development (BD4D) innovation success cases
# Lowering systemic barriers to big data for development adoption and scaling
# Strengthening cooperation within the big data for development ecosystem
The data sources that Global Pulse has investigated include:][
# Online content: Public news stories, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, obituaries, birth announcements, job postings, e- commerce, etc.
# ]Data exhaust
Data exhaust or exhaust data is the data trail, trail of data left by the activities of an Internet or other computer system users during their online activity, behavior, and transactions. This is part of a broader category of unconventional data ...
: Anonymized data generated through the use of services such as telecommunications, mobile banking, online search, hotline usage, transit, etc.
# Physical sensors - Satellite imagery, video, traffic sensors, etc.
# Crowdsourced reports - Information actively produced or submitted by citizens through mobile phone-based surveys, user generated maps, etc.
Global Pulse runs innovation programmes in which it partners with organizations that have access to relevant sources of big data, data analytics technologies, and data science expertise, as well as with UN agency and government ministry "problem owners" grappling with challenges that could benefit from new insights and real-time measurement tools, to discover, build and test high-potential applications of big data. Its innovation programmes focus on sectors such as food security, agriculture, employment, infectious disease, urbanization, and disaster response, as well as cross-cutting issues such as M&E and privacy protection.
The director of the initiative is Robert Kirkpatrick and the deputy director is Makena Walker.[
]
Media coverage
The United Nations Global Pulse has been discussed repeatedly in ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' and ''Foreign Policy
A State (polity), state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterall ...
''.
It has also received in-depth coverage in ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'',[ ]O'Reilly Media
O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) is an American learning company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books, produces tech conferences, and provides an online learning platform. Its distinctive brand features a woodcut of an ...
,[ and ]United Nations Radio
United Nations Radio was created on 13 February 1946. In 2017, United Nations Radio and the UN News Centre merged to form UN News, producing daily news and multimedia content in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Swahili, Portuguese, Russian, Sp ...
. It has also been mentioned in a ''Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' article about Teradata
Teradata Corporation is an American software company that provides cloud database and analytics-related software, products, and services. The company was formed in 1979 in Brentwood, California, as a collaboration between researchers at Caltech a ...
See also
* Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone The GDELT Project, or Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone, created by Kalev Leetaru of Yahoo! and Georgetown University, along with Philip Schrodt and others, describes itself as "an initiative to construct a catalog of human societal-sca ...
References
External links
* {{official website
United Nations Secretariat
2009 introductions