Back in 2012, we funded a team called Mastodon C. They had figured out a way of sending the processing you need to do for big data tasks to the most carbon efficient server. Since cloud computing accounts for 2% of global carbon emissions we thought this could have a potentially massive impact.

What we didn’t consider so much at the time was the huge impact the data analysis could have itself. In the last 2 years, Mastodon C have gone on to show the huge potential of big data to improve all aspects of our lives, from saving the public sector money to providing compelling evidence to backup policy change.

A few examples of what they’ve been up to:

• Saved NHS £200 million by pin pointing GP practices prescribing branded medications when the generic ones were recommended ().
• Shown a 60-80% drop in carbon emissions through sensors in retrofitted houses for the Department of Energy and Climate Change ().
• Mapped diabetes prevalence across the UK for the open data health platform.
• Used non traditional sources such as Github, Stackoverflow and Twitter to help Nesta identify where technical innovation is happening and how it is connected.

If you want some help making sense of your data check them out: www.mastodonc.com