Data is ubiquitous, and is increasingly playing a significant role in every aspect of our lives, from helping us to make informed decisions to building intelligent systems.
Data is created when a computer system captures and records some kind of observation or activity; this is true of any example of data being electronically recorded, from something as simple as an Internet of Things (IoT) device recording temperature at a given point in time at a specific location to something more complex, such as a human being completing an online purchase. In this context, we can think of data as a raw material consisting of information of value.
This raw data in itself could be extremely useful. Interesting insights can be obtained by processing this data and combining it with other types of data. Data processing helps turn this information into insights that can...