Can 6 billion cells phones collecting data on how people move lead to better human health?

SFI Omidyar Fellow Alums Caroline Buckee and Nathan Eagle are featured in an MIT Technology Review article that explores the implications of cell phone data, especially the potential blunting the spread of disease.

With six billion cell phones worldwide, most in the developing world, data on human movements is more available than ever. That presents privacy challenges, says the article, but for some researchers it is research gold.

Buckee, for example, has used cell phone and cell phone tower data from Kenya to build predictive models that suggest ways authorities might better prevent the spread of malaria.

Buckee's work is a collaboration with her husband, Nathan Eagle, founder and CEO of Jana, who has been working on ways to mine and use cell phone data for more than a decade. He wants to scale up cell phone data mining for the public good.

Read the article in MIT Technology Review (May/June 2013).

Provided by Santa Fe Institute