Gallery: Computing's Big Data Summit

Yesterday's Big Data Summit saw experts and academics from around the world gather to discuss the practical applications of big data, and how to exploit it

Computing's Big Data Summity in London yesterday saw experts and academics from around the world gather to discuss the practical applications of big data, and how to exploit it.

In this photo, Professor Mark Whitehorn, chair of analytics at the University of Dundee, said that even seemingly insignificant information can prove incredibly useful, with the correct use case.

"Google decided to keep all the information from users' spelling mistakes in their search engine, data that most people would throw away. They looked at what people typed, even if they spelt Ferrari with eight 'r's. Then they looked at where they actually wanted to go," said Whitehorn.

"Now you can make typos in Google and still get to where you want to go. They've effectively developed the world's most powerful spellchecker."

Gallery: Computing's Big Data Summit

Yesterday's Big Data Summit saw experts and academics from around the world gather to discuss the practical applications of big data, and how to exploit it

This photo shows the panel discussing how to "Make the business case for big data".

From the left we have: conference chair Jo Stanford, group IT director, De Vere Group; Alpesh Doshi, partner at Fintricity; Computing's editor Chris Middleton; Professor Mark Whitehorn, chair of analytics at the University of Dundee; and Christine Ashton, regional CIO, AMEA/ECA & enterprise technologies, BG Group.

Gallery: Computing's Big Data Summit

Yesterday's Big Data Summit saw experts and academics from around the world gather to discuss the practical applications of big data, and how to exploit it

Richard Hammell, head of analytics at Delloitte, gave delegates his thoughts on how to compete on insight, including the potential of open data.

Gallery: Computing's Big Data Summit

Yesterday's Big Data Summit saw experts and academics from around the world gather to discuss the practical applications of big data, and how to exploit it

Nilan Peiris, chief marketing technology officer at HolidayExtras, told delegates how to achieve customer-driven online growth.

"If your website's slow, it's your problem. Fix it," said Peiris.

Gallery: Computing's Big Data Summit

Yesterday's Big Data Summit saw experts and academics from around the world gather to discuss the practical applications of big data, and how to exploit it

Colin Gibson, head of data architecture for the markets and international banking at RBS, presented a case study titled "Understanding data: analysis not archeology".

Gallery: Computing's Big Data Summit

Yesterday's Big Data Summit saw experts and academics from around the world gather to discuss the practical applications of big data, and how to exploit it

Francois Zimmermann, CTO, Hitachi Data Systems, gave a presentation titled: "There's no such thing as unstructured data, there's only data you haven't structured yet".

He also took part in the final panel session, which took a look into the future, called: "Big data in 2014: what does the future hold?"

Gallery: Computing's Big Data Summit

Yesterday's Big Data Summit saw experts and academics from around the world gather to discuss the practical applications of big data, and how to exploit it

The event was attended by just under 200 senior IT professionals. There will be an in-depth analysis on the event in the next issue of Computing (to be published on Thursday 5 July), which will be on this website at the same time.

There will also be several videos from the event available on this site next week, featuring interviews with speakers, sponsors and delegates.