Today the world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Alphabet - Google’s parent company- are the five most valuable listed firms in the world, collectively taking in over $25 billion US dollars in the first quarter of 2017.

Whether you are going for a run, watching TV, browsing online or even just sitting in traffic, virtually every activity creates a digital trace. Our connected, always ‘on’ world has generated huge volumes of data but also heightened concerns.

At the cost of our privacy this data economy brings opportunities, particularly in the area of public policy. Big Data is now being used to fight obesity, predict crime hot spots, to help NASA map Dark Matter.

In this episode of The Policy Shop, alumnas of the University of Melbourne and Founder and CEO of the data analytics company, Kaggle, Anthony Goldbloom joins Professor Glyn Davis, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne to discuss the potential and challenges of big data for public policy.