Donating data--e.g., allowing governments to monitor Twitter for real-time updates in crisis situations--may be part of philanthropic future.
"For example, in developing countries, mobile network operators can estimate household income of their subscribers from how much and how often they purchase airtime. Online chatter on blogs and forums can foreshadow imminent unemployment spikes. The volume of tweets mentioning food prices tends to rise and fall with inflation rates, and calling patterns through mobile phone networks shift in response to the prices of specific commodities. Such research has changed the debate from whether Big Data can have social impact to how. For the UN, this ability to glean real-time information could transform our work to protect development gains among the world's most vulnerable populations." --Robert Kirkpatrick in Harvard Business Review
