BIG Data was introduced in the mid-2000s when there was a realisation that traditional Business Intelligence tools could not manage the size and complexities of data generated from Web 2.0. Big Data has since generated a lot of excitement and some have even touted it as the silver bullet required to end world hunger.
But the ability to use data for decision making has in fact been around for much longer; we’re talking 7,000 years ago in the Mesopotamian era when accounting was first introduced to record the growth of herds and crops.