The Data Divide—And How to Cross It

Data can be leveraged by different people in different specialties to solve real-world problems. A neurogeneticist is working in an e-commerce start-up to solve the problem of how to plan a delivery route across the busiest parts of the city. He is building his algorithm to mimic the way human genes convey information. A competitor, meanwhile, has hired a nuclear physicist who worked in the Large Hadron Collider to solve the same problem. Both are approaching the challenge as a data problem, after all.