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Eric Newburger’s lunch keynote entitled “Why the Census? Big Data From the Enlightenment to Today” was a clear favorite for many attendees at Data Innovation Day. In the talk, Newburger explored the history of the U.S. Census Bureau — arguably one of the most data-rich resources in the United States.

More than 6.7 million students took an online course in 2011…were you one of them?Education and Skills 2.0: New Targets and Innovative Approaches, a new book from the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Education and Skills, says that at scale, higher education’s migration to online will redefine what it means to provide a great education to students.

In this 2011 TED Talk, Harold Haas describes how he became motivated to find an alternative to our current system of wireless data transmission. His light-fidelity (Li-Fi) wireless data transmission system through LED lighting solves issues of capacity, efficiency, availability, and security in our current radio-frequency transmission system.

Losing weight is consistently one of the top new year’s resolutions made by Americans. But how to go about this admittedly lofty task? Some approach this with exercise, some with diet…or you could try out one of the hottest trends in consumer data science: “wearable tech.”

It’s always fascinating to take a look at the data visualizations and in-depth reports widely available on the web. As an aspiring (or active) data scientist, however, one of the best things you can do to learn about a particular field is to get your own hands dirty. Here, we’ve compiled a list of sites that host open and free data sets for anyone to use.

KB, MB, GB…these are all measurements we understand. But how much does a terabyte hold? How many DVDs would it take to reach a zettabyte? And what on earth is a yottabyte? To better understand the scope of data size, check out our infographic for real-life examples, a timeline of hard drive innovation, and a glimpse at where the data storage industry is heading in the future.

Here, Kris Harbold explores the Bitly Real-Time Media Map, an interactive data visualization that illustrates media consumption across the United States. By using the tools of data science to analyze the source and format of media links being shared, this map attempts to pinpoint correlations between the political affiliation of readers and the news they consume.