Interview: Arthur Chan, SagaDigits Features 18/06/2018 Hurrairah bin Sohail talks with SagaDigits, which has made the bold move to bring big data applications to AV in Asia Pacific.Big data has been doing the rounds of the AV and IT industries as a buzzword for a while. But when it comes to the real world applications and implications of big data most are at a loss. SagaDigits, based in Hong Kong, is a team providing large scale applications in data mining, cleansing, extraction, and analytics services for big data. Arthur Chan, director of SagaDigits, talks about the company’s business: “We deal with big data and have clients from the security, banking and electronics sectors. We focus on big data, incorporation of offline data and data created on the edge.” Chan goes on to define big data from his perspective: “I think big data is best defined by its natural meaning. There are a lot of terms being used today which complicate the matter. Essentially, big data combines a large quantity of small data into useful data. Any touch point with the users, be it from app interactions or location based services provides you small data. The history of this small data over time can tell you a story. We aggregate this different user behaviour and build data models and provide AI to predict outcomes from big data.” SagaDigits is working in conjunction with major big data players such as IBM to develop solutions. Chan believes that IBM is developing the tools people need to actively employ big data to improve their businesses. He says: “IBM and other players are focussing on the big picture. We believe they are missing the last mile and this is where we step in. We are providing the vision and the application on how to use the data on the edge (of IT systems).” Recently, SagaDigits has focussed its attention on the retail sector. It is working together with Hong Kong-based integrator, Media-Go, to bring its big data applications to shopping malls and outlets in order to improve how businesses interact and serve their customers. Chan details: “Last year, we acquired a location based company from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Our focus is on offline data created on the edge. We want to use this data to immediately respond to customers. In order to achieve this we started cooperating with Media- Go to build innovative systems for shopping malls and retail.” The acquired technology allowed SagDigits to develop a hardware-less solution which can provide the x, y, z and time coordinates for a user with accuracy. All the user needs to do is have the wireless connectivity option enabled on their iOS or Android device. This data is then employed by the retail outlets to further optimise their response to customer behaviour. Chan believes that the applications of big data in the AV world are limitless. He says: “With big data you can tell how people are reacting to AV systems. In rental and staging, we can gauge the audience response to the AV systems which can be very beneficial. The same approach can be used in corporate boardrooms or with collaboration systems in classrooms. For something like digital signage, we can employ a simple camera to track how the signage fulfils the user need. This is the direction that AV must take.” Chan also understands the importance of AV systems as a part of the big data ecosystem. He says: “IT may view AV systems as end points but they are also ‘start points’. AV systems close the loop for IT, but they are the start of the loop as the first point of contact with the user for data collection.” However, AV systems today are not easily amalgamated into big data setups. Chan details: “Right now you have to combine different products from different vendors under the same control system and this is not easily accomplished. What we need are the hardware log files which have the heartbeat of every system recorded. By analysing these files we can get valuable data about the product and even about how it is being used.” This is where SagaDigits’ partnership with Media-Go bears fruit. Chan says: “We are green when it comes to smart signage, digital walls and AV systems in general which happens to be Media-Go’s core competency. Media-Go can help collect data from hardware and our models can optimise the information and predict when failure will occur for a particular product.” Chan discusses the challenges that the partnership faces: “Bringing big data to AV is not easy or simple. What we need is for all the vendors to sit together and come up with a generalised AV standard similar to the ones we have in IT and we all know that right now this is an almost impossible task. What we need to ensure is that the device provider or vendor has the responsibility to provide suitable access to the product’s log files. We can convert the log files to a generic model and then data scientists can find the important patterns within. Right now AV manufacturers do not have a data driven philosophy.” There is definitely a seat at the table of big data for AV. However, AV will have to adapt to take advantage of the opportunity. Chan says: “The change with regards to standards will take time. But if it does not happen, big data can explore other avenues. IoT, with cheap sensors, is already an integral part of big data. It can be used to gauge the response to AV systems without using AV systems. The best way would still be vendors providing access to the data.” He concludes: “If we are not given the data naturally we can capture it separately and AV would be left out of the conversation. This method may give us a different story but it might be as valuable to us.”