Predata
Inventing the Future by Anticipating It

“No one can anticipate the future the way Predata does,” begins Hazem Dawani, the company’s CEO. Predata, a predictive analytics company, uses alternative data and machine learning, combined with an understanding of human behavior in order to anticipate future events. With its cloud-based platform, Predata provides signals or probabilities that indicate the likelihood of a given type of event taking place up to thirty days in advance. For example, Predata’s platform might predict that a terrorist incident in a specific country has a high chance of occurring within the next two weeks. “Our platform can predict a variety of global macro events, from political instability to market moves, which enables clients to anticipate risk and identify opportunities,” explains Dawani. Predata has a varied client base that includes financial institutions, political organizations, and think tanks like the Center for Strategic and International Studies that seek Predata’s support to manage risk.

In a fairly new industry like predictive analytics, the biggest challenge is the amount of data available. There are 4.2 billion active internet users around the world, which is double the number recorded a few years ago, with each user generating new data every day. Additionally, every industry today has its own proprietary information. Sifting through it all to find patterns and make accurate predictions can be exceedingly difficult. The Predata platform has found a way to effectively analyze large amounts of information by using artificial intelligence and machine learning on anonymized online metadata to find the patterns that precede major events. However, what separates Predata from other analytics firms is their understanding of human behavior. “Our data scientists and engineers have invented very complex systems to analyze massive data sets and make sense of them. Our key advantage though is that this analysis is based off of our models of human behavior so the patterns that the system finds reflect real world activity,” adds Dawani. That’s how the company was able to accurately predict when North Korea would conduct its missile launch tests over the past several years.

Our platform can predict a variety of global macro events, from political instability to market moves, which enables clients to anticipate risk and identify opportunities

The company works with its clients to determine the types of potential outcomes they’d like to anticipate. For instance, North Korea experts at the nonpartisan Washington think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) sought a reliable indicator to help their analysts predict when the Kim Jong-un regime would test launch a ballistic missile. Predata worked with their analysts to combine their event data sets with the platform’s alterative data and predictive algorithms. CSIS was able to build predictive risk signals that could anticipate missile activity days and weeks in advance.The think tank’s experts have used these signals to accurately predict the most recent missile launches by North Korea, and more impressively successfully predict three cases where there were no missile launches.

Predata has found success in providing its clients with signals that give them a substantial probability of whether or not an event is going to occur. While, the company’s online platform is designed to assist analysts, it is looking to scale its platform so that it can reach a more extensive customer base. Currently, Predata is building a simplified version of their platform that will show clients a summarized view of the signals that matter most to them. This will help broaden the potential audience for the platform and open it for use by staff in an organization other than analysts and data scientists.