This document discusses leveraging big social data for social impact. It provides two use cases: (1) using social data to inform policy design by modeling societal beliefs, as an alternative to costly surveys; and (2) using social data during disasters to improve coordination between citizens and response organizations. Specifically, the document discusses filtering social data by intent and user importance, and developing online matchmaking systems to connect those offering and seeking help. It argues that focusing on modeling citizen behavior and developing interdisciplinary solutions can help transform public goodwill expressed on social media into meaningful action and impact.

1. BIG DATA INNOVATION
FOR
SOCIAL IMPACT
Hemant Purohit
Assistant Professor, Information Sciences and Technology
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@hemant_pt
ICICT-2015 Keynote, Oct 9
International Congress on Information & Communication Technology
Computer Society of India, ACM Udaipur

2. 20th Century Connectivity
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@hemant_pt

3. 21st Century Connectivity
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@hemant_pt

4. Consequence: Data Deluge
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@hemant_pt

5. Data Deluge => Innovation Opportunity
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@hemant_pt
WHY, WHAT &
HOW to leverage?

6. ORGANIZATIONS CITIZEN COMMUNITIES
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@hemant_pt
Overload
of
Citizen-­‐generated
data

7. ORGANIZATIONS CITIZEN COMMUNITIES
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Structured Roles &
Defined Tasks
Highly
Unstructured
@hemant_pt
Lets tap citizen behaviors that meet organizational information needs ..

8. Social Data: Goldmine of Human Behavior!
Uni-directional communication
(TO people)
Bi-directional
(BY people, TO people)
Web 2.0
media
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@hemant_pt

9. BUT .. Mining Behavior is challenging
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Human
Behavior
Emotion
Intent
Attitude
Belief
Sentiment
@hemant_pt
Social data: Multimodal, ambiguous, unconstrainednatural language

10. USE-CASE-1. Can Societal Belief
Modeling inform Policy Design?
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@hemant_pt

11. USE-CASE-1. Can Societal Belief Modeling
inform Policy Design?
• Surveys:
– Static by design
– Time & Resource costs
• Social Data:
– Dynamic & Cheap commodity
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@hemant_pt
@User15 no place is THAT safe and I don't really want
to take the risk especially
when I'm alone :((( rape and robbery are very …
Purohit, et al. (2015). Gender-based violence in 140characters or fewer: a #BigData case
study of Twitter. arXiv preprintarXiv:1503.02086.

12. USE-CASE-2. Can Disaster Response Orgs
leverage Social Data at Scale?
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@hemant_pt
20M+ Tweets
during #Sandy
HURRICANE SANDY RESPONSE: $60+ Bln in damage
Does anyone know how to donate
clothes to hurricane #Sandy victims?

13. Consequence: Creation of 2nd Disaster
• Resource demand-supply mismatch
Hurricane Sandy, “Thanks, but no thanks”, NPR,
Jan 12 2013http://www.npr.org/2013/01/09/168946170/thanks-but-no-thanks-when-post-
disaster-donations-overwhelm
@hemant_pt
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14. DISASTER
Event
@hemant_pt
Solution: Mine Big Social Data to Improve
Disaster Coordination
CITIZEN
Sensors
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RESPONSE
Organizations

15. DISASTER Event
2.a.) Filtering Big Disaster Data: Intentions
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CITIZEN
Sensors
RESPONSE
Organizations
Me and @CeceVancePR are coordinating a clothing/food
drive for families affected by Hurricane Sandy. If you
would like to donate, DM us
Does anyone know how to donate clothes to
hurricane #Sandy victims?
[SEEKING
[OFFERING
Intent-Classifiers
as a Service
Purohit et al. (2013) First Monday, & Purohit et al. (2014) JCSCW@hemant_pt

16. DISASTER Event
2.b.) “We TRUST people!” => Filtering Users to
Engage
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CITIZEN
Sensors
RESPONSE
Organizations
Tool to mine
Important users
@hemant_pt Purohit et al. (2014) ISCRAM

17. Want to help animals
in #Oklahoma?
@ASPCA tells how you
can help:
http://t.co/mt8l9Pwz
mOx
RESPONSE TEAMS
(including humanitarian
org. and ‘pseudo’
responders)
VICTIM SITE
Where do I go
to help out for
volunteer work
around Moore?
Anyone know?
Anyone know
where to donate to
help the animals
from Oklahoma
disaster
#oklahoma #dogs
Matchable
Matchable
If you would
like to volunteer
today, help is
desperately
needed in
Shawnee. Call
273-5331 for
more info
Future: Online Match-making Crisis Coordination
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CITIZEN SENSORS
Need
Offer
@hemant_pt
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Purohit et al. (2013) First Monday

18. Exemplary Cyber-Human System:
Transforming Public Goodwill into Action
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@InCrisisRelief : presented by @parrySingh
@hemant_pt Purohit et al. (2015) Empowering Crisis Response-led Citizen Communities. IGI Global

19. Time to Start modeling Citizen
Behavior for Social Impact!
• Data challenges:
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Ambiguity
Sparsity
Diversity
Scalability
@hemant_pt
Need
for
the
Solution
at
the
intersection

20. Conclusion
• Start from organizational information needs to
create Big Data systems for social impact
• Interdisciplinary Research a necessity!
• Less is More! -- We need to focus on actionable
data, not Big Data deluge
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@hemant_pt

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TWITTER: @hemant_pt
MAIL: hpurohit@gmu.edu
Acknowledgement: Respective image sources, and
Questions?