Bilal Siddiqi

Bilal Siddiqi
Designation: Director of Research, CEGA
Bilal is the Director of Research at the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at the University of California, Berkeley, where he articulates and advances CEGA’s intellectual agenda. His research interests lie in political economy and applied microeconomics, focusing on the relationship between law, institutions, conflict, and development. His current work at CEGA includes addressing the need to track the impact of COVID-19 by using cellphone and satellite data.
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Despite the hype, do not expect big data to replace traditional surveys anytime soon

Douglas Glandon, Ran Goldblatt, Maria Ruth Jones, Bilal Siddiqi 07 January 2021 blog  
The COVID-19 pandemic has created new hype around the potential for new, ‘big’, data sources to revolutionize data collection, and change the landscape of evidence for policy. Non-traditional data sources - like satellite imagery, call detail records, and social media posts—do offer exciting opportunities to track and understand processes on Earth across space and time like never possible before.