Deloitte this month announced the launch of a first-of-its-kind public data visualization tool, Open Source Compass (OSC) intended to help C-suite leaders, product managers and software engineers understand the trajectory of open source development and emerging technologies.
The information curated and shared through the new data visualization tool will provide insights to inform key business decisions. OSC evaluates code commits and developer mindshare to better understand technology trends, guides exploration into relevant platforms and languages, and enables visibility into the developer talent landscape.
Designed and developed by Deloitte, Datawheel, and Artificial and Natural Intelligence Toulouse Institute (ANITI) Chair Cesar Hidalgo, OSC analyzes data from the largest open source development platform which brings together over 36 million developers from around the world. OSC visualizes the scale and reach of emerging technology domains — over 100 million repositories/projects — in areas including blockchain, machine learning, and IoT.
Open source software continues to gain traction in the enterprise as a powerful accelerator for digital transformation, value creation and talent strategy; a complement to increasingly strategic cloud providers, enterprise technology partners, and plans to modernize their legacy core technology stack. Open source also continues to deliver an invaluable foundation to startups with more limited resources. Some of the key benefits of Deloitte’s new open-source analysis tool include:
- Exploring which specific open source projects are growing or stagnating in domains like machine learning.
- Identifying potential platforms for prototyping, experimentation, and scaled innovation.
- Scouting for tech talent in specific technology domains and locations.
- Detecting and assessing technology risks.
- Understanding what programming languages are gaining or losing ground to inform training and recruitment.
“Open source software has been around since the early days of the internet and has incited a completely new kind of collaboration and productivity — especially in the realm of emerging technology,” said Bill Briggs, chief technology officer, Deloitte Consulting LLP. “Deloitte’s Open Source Compass can help provide insights that allow organizations to be more deliberate in their approach to innovation, while connecting to a pool of bourgeoning talent.”
Open Source Compass will provide insights into 15 emergent technology domains, including cybersecurity, virtual/augmented reality, serverless computing and machine learning, to name a few. The site will offer a view into systemic trends on how the domains are evolving. The open source platform will also explore geographic trends based on project development, authors and knowledge sharing across cities and countries. It will also track how certain programming languages are being used and how fast they are growing. Free and open to the public, the site enables users to query technology domains of interest, run their own comparisons, and share or download data.
Datawheel, an award-winning company specialised in the creation of data visualisation solutions, designed and developed the platform. “Making sense of large streams of data is one of the most pressing challenges of our day,” said Hidalgo. “In Open Source Compass, we used our latest technologies to create a platform that turns opaque and difficult to understand streams of data into simple and easy to understand visualizations.”
“Open Source Compass can address different organizational needs for different types of users based on their priorities,” said Ragu Gurumurthy, global chief innovation officer for Deloitte Consulting LLP. “A CTO could explore the latest project developments in machine learning to help drive experimentation, while a learning and development leader can find the most popular programming language for robotics that could then be taught as a new skill in an internal course offering.”
